Lighting a candle is an act of self-care. A simple gesture can create a soothing atmosphere, and now the Los Angeles-based design brand Dumæ wants to elevate this further. The Kayla Lighter is a chic replacement for the everyday match or worn-out plastic igniter.

Sculpted from brass, handcrafted in India and refillable, the lighter sits between a functional object and a homeware accessory, and is as beautiful as it is functional. Founded by Kym Gold and Sakshi Khurana, Dumæ works with artisan partners across India to create pieces that bring a sense of permanence and beauty to an everyday ritual.

The Kayla Lighter was presented alongside a wider collection, including pieces varying from tabletop and serving vessels to candle lights, lighting, and collectible gifts. What ties each piece together is its aesthetics and functionality, which encourage conversation, as mundane household objects are transformed into objects of beauty.

Dumæ's creative vision is centred on contemporary design paired with artisanal knowledge. The brand’s name is derived from Point Dume, the Malibu coastline where Gold grew up, and combined with Mae, a spiritual tribute to motherhood and the women who have shaped her life and creative perspective.

The founding partners come from a fashion background, with Gold previously co-founding the high-end jeans brand True Religion, while Khurana has worked across operations and product development with brands like Giorgio Armani and Urban Zen by Donna Karan. For them, Dumæ is a vessel to utilise their shared fashion experience and transplant it into the design world.

Working with ceramics, wax and metal, to paper, textiles and lighting, the brand has now ventured into sculptural resin through the Kayla Lighter, which now joins Dumæ’s portfolio of objects that can move effortlessly between homes, hotels and shared spaces.

Through rich colours, vibrant decor and stylish couture, filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar has crafted a visual language over his five-decade career that now seems inextricable from contemporary Spanish identity. Interior design is sacred ground for the Madrid-based legend of world cinema, who constructs vibrant aesthetic landscapes in which equally rich stories unfold.

His latest creation, 'Bitter Christmas' (out in UK cinemas from 28 August 2026), is a work of autofiction about the craft of filmmaking. While the plot sees characters battling writer’s block and other personal demons, the slick design of the spaces reflects their emotional experiences - as well as Almodóvar’s distinctive taste in furniture, art and decoration.

Designing Pedro Almodóvar's rich universe

'Pedro’s universe is one of colour, symmetry and saturation,' says art director Antxón Gómez, who has worked on 13 of Almodóvar’s films over the past three decades. 'All the objects that appear have a narrative – the decoration is another character in the films.'

A filmmaker named Raúl (played by Leonardo Sbaraglia) is the autobiographically inspired protagonist of 'Bitter Christmas'. 'Raúl’s world is one where he's constantly writing,' says Gómez, explaining scenes that show the character typing at his desk. 'Behind him, there's a bookshelf full of books about culture and cinema.'

The red shelves are set against a glass wall to the outdoors, which Gómez says has a symbolic function. 'The idea was that Raúl is free because nothing is closed off behind him,' he explains. 'He has freedom of thought and freedom to write.'

Raúl’s home also offers a visual feast through furniture design. His living room features a Superleggera armchair by Gio Ponti and a Cornaro sofa by Carlo Scarpa. A Lámina ceiling light designed by Antoni Arola for Santa & Cole hangs in his dining room while an Angel Wing floor lamp by Alvar Aalto from Artek stands in the corner. The decor unites modern and contemporary icons, from a Cassina sofa designed by Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret and Charlotte Perriand to Jaime Hayon’s Explorer table and Multileg cabinet for BD Barcelona.

The design of this and other homes serves to accentuate some of the story’s most evocative moments. When another main character, Elsa (played by Barbara Lennie), goes to her friend Patricia (Victoria Luengo)’s house, she finds a green Bubble sofa by Sacha Lakic – which formed part of a collection that Almodóvar himself curated for Roche Bobois in 2025. The two women sit on the sofa and cry while listening to Mexican singer Chavela Vargas, whose song Amarga Navidad (Bitter Christmas) lends the film its name.

Crafting a story through art and furniture

Complementing the furniture is a striking curation of artworks – nearly all from Almodóvar’s own collection. Many are by Spanish icons who emerged, like the director himself, from la movida madrilena – the countercultural movement following the end of Franco’s dictatorship in 1975. Sigfrido Martín Begué’s screenprint Santa Cecilia (1987) hangs in Patricia’s flat, while Raul’s residence houses an abstract oil painting by Miguel Ángel Campano – to whom Madrid gallery Maisterra is dedicating a new exhibition opening in September.

Alongside the Spanish names are New York-based contemporary artists like Inka Essenhigh, whose surreal floral paintings hang over Elsa’s bed as she suffers a migraine, and Asher Liftin, whose trompe l'oeil painting Studio Window IV (Hot Winter Sun) hangs opposite Raúl’s desk – another symbol of the open windows of his mind.

An architectural journey

Often favouring real-life locations over film sets, Almodóvar sets his stories in places replete with design heritage. The scenes at Raúl’s home were filmed in the Madrid residence and studio of modernist architect Francisco de Asís Cabrero, designed in 1962. The wooden-panelled structure supported by red steel columns and beams blends Spanish rationalism with a Japanese-inspired attention to blending indoor and outdoor space.

Likewise, when Elsa retreats to Lanzarote to unlock her creativity, viewers are greeted by another striking project -–a home called La Cabaña belonging to and designed by French designer Yoann Le Mercier. Set among the vast volcanic terrain of the island, the property features white walls and flooring throughout, with subtle touches of light wood and colourful fruit. Black rock walls close off the outdoor area, punctuated by cacti and other subtropical vegetation.

Taken by Le Mercier’s decor, which included an Honoré armchair, a Blasco linen sofa and Roger Capron ceramic coffee tables, Gómez and his team kept most things in place for the filming. Small additions they made included vases by César Manrique – an homage to Lanzarote’s most defining architect, whose house-museum is also found on the island.

The setting also allowed Almodóvar – normally famed for bright, vibrant colours - to take a significant new direction by embracing white and black. 'It was very unusual - but that’s what the island is,' explains Gómez, referring to Lanzarote’s black lava and whitewashed buildings. 'Respecting that was a very interesting decision.'

It’s part of a wider chromatic shift across Almodóvar's career: while his earlier works celebrated red, apricot and albero tones, his recent creations lean towards more melancholic shades of blue, green and grey. The changing colour palette echoes the evolution of a filmmaker who has charted immense social transformation over his time. 'Albero belongs to another narrative era of Pedro’s films,' reflects Gómez. 'Maybe we’ll return sometime – but we all need to change a little, right?'

Bitter Christmas is in UK cinemas from 28 August 2026

Goy Architects, an emerging practice from Singapore, joins the Wallpaper* Architects Directory 2026, our annual round-up of exciting emerging architecture studios.

Who: Goy Architects

Singapore architect Goy Zhenru draws on her country’s diversity and rich history to create designs that blend culture, craftsmanship and material exploration – the small, southeastern Asian nation’s perspective is invaluable in her work, she says: ‘We see ourselves designing with a unique point of view from Southeast Asia. We want to be able to showcase this rich geographical, cultural and material diversity in our region.’

The same context is what forms her constellation of influences, she explains: ‘Years of working in Southeast Asia have shaped our belief in vernacular intelligence and regional specificity. We design for the equatorial climate, drawing inspiration from local traditions while interpreting them in a contemporary voice. Our hope is that every space we create resonates with a quiet sense of place, culture, and care.’

Her decade-long experience as an independent practice has resulted in a broad portfolio of works, which includes examples of restoration and adaptation of existing building fabric, as well as some new built and interiors projects, peppered with furniture work for specific clients.

Meanwhile, rediscovering traditional and new materials from the region becomes a fun challenge for the architect, she adds: ‘This enables us to tell stories through materials. Our design process is deeply collaborative, often involving regional craftsmen to co-create bespoke elements such as tiles, furniture, and artworks. We regularly visit workshops to understand their capabilities and develop prototypes — even outside of active projects — building a growing library of regional materials and supporting small-scale makers along the way.’

What: Namly

An existing, 1950s single-storey house with important sentimental value for this project’s client was an important starting point for Namly, a project in a residential enclave within the Bukit Timah neighbourhood. The single-family home’s users, a group of seven - including three adult children, a stay-in helper, and visiting relatives - were already living in the building but were in need of more space.

At the same time, the building’s architectural features, from colourful mosaic flooring to patterned metal window grills and varied plaster finishes, were much loved by the client and important to restore and keep. Adding an extension that would be sympathetic to the original property and maintain its historic charm was central to the design solution. Goy’s strategy integrated a newly landscaped courtyard garden with a new material palette of cement, sand tiles, and brickwork referencing the original grill design. The perforation offers both privacy and ventilation between spaces.

Why: Architects Directory 2026

When the Wallpaper* Architects’ Directory was conceived in 2000, it was built as our bespoke international index of emerging architectural talent. Now in its 25th edition, our annual listing of promising practices from across the globe (now comprising over 500 alumni) champions the best and most promising young studios - a snapshot of talent showcasing inspiring work from all corners of the Earth with an emphasis on the residential realm.

This year’s anniversary survey includes 30 young studios (one for each of the 30 years of Wallpaper*), from Australia, Bahrain, Benin, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Denmark, Ecuador, Ghana, Greece, France, Ivory Coast, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Kuwait, India, Morocco, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, the UK, the USA, and Vietnam. Welcome to the promise, ideas and exciting architecture of the Wallpaper* Architects’ Directory 2026.

goyarchitects.com

Solar.xyz, an emerging Spanish practice, joins the Wallpaper* Architects Directory 2026, our annual round-up of exciting emerging architecture studios.

Who: Solar.xyz

This young Spanish studio, founded in 2022, is a partnership between architects Pablo Canga and Ana Herreros. The duo’s strength lies in their ability to combine professional design practices with academic, teaching and editorial work - their research project ‘The Architectures of Repair,’ for instance, looks at the intersection between research and practice and focuses on the socio-ecological transformation of pre-existing structures.

‘We like challenging the disposable paradigm of contemporary building culture, proposing an architecture that is both historically conscious and technologically agile – an architecture that treats sustainability as an ethical commitment rather than a mere technical upgrade,’ they say.

‘One of the biggest influences is the text “The As Found and the Found” written by Alison Smithson and Peter Smithson, central figures in postwar British architecture and members of Team 10. In this text, the Smithsons explore the idea of the “as found” as an attitude toward architecture and urbanism. Rather than imposing rigid, idealised designs, they advocate for engaging directly with the existing conditions of a site—its materials, social patterns, and everyday realities.’ They view the relationship between craftsmanship and technology in construction as more of an ecological method of designing rather than the ‘nostalgic versus progressive’ framing that the debate often gets.

Having received the top gong at the Chamber of Architects Emerging Award 2024 in Spain, among several other accolades, it is obvious the pair are going places. Their first project together, Casa Castellar, exemplifies their approach.

What: Casa Castelar

Casa Castelar is a refurbishment and redesign project of a private home, part of a larger 19th-century development just outside the Spanish capital. Titled Madrid Moderno, the scheme originally comprised ninety-six houses inspired by the notion of the garden-city, yet just fourteen of them remain as the neighbourhood went through a redevelopment phase in the 1970s.

Solar.xyz was called upon to refresh the structure, blending the old and the new to craft a 21st-century family home. Their approach centres on maintaining older features through modern interpretation, while adding bioclimatic strategies and systems to ensure the building responds to contemporary climatic needs. Thermal insulation, new joineries, aerothermal solutions, and the optimisation of cross ventilation were all carefully considered and added where necessary. The result? They reduced the house’s energy consumption by over 70%.

Why: Architects Directory 2026

When the Wallpaper* Architects’ Directory was conceived in 2000, it was built as our bespoke international index of emerging architectural talent. Now in its 25th edition, our annual listing of promising practices from across the globe (now comprising over 500 alumni) champions the best and most promising young studios - a snapshot of talent showcasing inspiring work from all corners of the Earth with an emphasis on the residential realm.

This year’s anniversary survey includes 30 young studios (one for each of the 30 years of Wallpaper*), from Australia, Bahrain, Benin, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Denmark, Ecuador, Ghana, Greece, France, Ivory Coast, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Kuwait, India, Morocco, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, the UK, the USA, and Vietnam. Welcome to the promise, ideas and exciting architecture of the Wallpaper* Architects’ Directory 2026.

solarestudio.xyz

In a new Wallpaper* summer series, 'Objectify', architect Carlo Ratti explores Italy through the ordinary objects that define daily life. This week, he's shining a light on the condominio, the residential solution that stood the test of time – and still tests us

Carlo Ratti on the condominio

This summer has not been easy for European holidaymakers. Temperatures through the roof. Wildfires across Spain, France and Italy. The EasyJet meltdown, with its nights on the floor at Gatwick. Still… It could have been worse. We could have been stuck in the city, cooped up inside a condominio, the shared apartment block where most Italians live.

Few people realise that the condominio is one of Italy’s most successful inventions, exported around the world. Its origins go back to the Casa di Diana, a second-century AD insula. While the patrician families spread horizontally through their opulent villas, the plebs went vertical. Floor upon floor, family upon family.

The success was immediate. In imperial Rome, the first city in history to pass the one-million-inhabitant mark, tens of thousands of insulae sprang up. Some reached seven or eight storeys, prompting Emperor Augustus to impose a height limit: a kind of proto-zoning code, introduced before urban planning even had a name.

But with the condominium came, alas, the condòmino: the neighbour. In his Third Satire, Juvenal explains why his friend Umbricius decided to leave Rome for Cumae: cracked walls, precarious buildings, fires and noisy neighbours. 'Quae meritoria somnum admittunt?' Meaning, 'which rented dwellings allow sleep?' History’s first condominium complaint has come down to us in hexameters.

Two thousand years later, same old story. The Sunday-morning drill, heels clattering on the floor above, the rowdy meeting to decide how to divvy up the cost of the roof. The French writer Georges Perec used just one Parisian apartment block to write Life: A User’s Manual. The Englishman J.G. Ballard, meanwhile, took a London tower block as his starting point for High-Rise, his chronicle of the unravelling of the social contract.

And yet the condominio has never stopped working. Stack enough people on top of one another, and you get urban density. You also get support, as demonstrated by the neighbourly solidarity of the Covid-19 years and the building concierge’s ever-reliable grapevine. Not to mention serendipity. Remember the Italian movie The Elevator? On the eve of Ferragosto, with the city deserted, a priest and a voluptuous woman find themselves trapped for hours in the building’s lift.

The condominio, in other words, distils a dichotomy as old as cities themselves. The longing to be together and the desire to flee. Integration and segregation. Like the Republic of Venice, which for centuries welcomed people from every corner of the Mediterranean, yet at the same time invented the ghetto, the quarter where Jews were locked in at night, on an island named after the foundry, or geto, that once stood there.

And so, even if this stifling tail end of summer is not going entirely to plan, let’s remember that things could be worse. 'Hell is other people,' wrote Sartre. Perhaps he too, one distant summer in the 1970s, found himself stuck without air conditioning in his condominio at 42 Rue Bonaparte in Paris.

About 'Objectify' – a summer series from Italy by Carlo Ratti

Italy’s design canon has been told many times. The Bialetti moka pot, the Vespa, the Fiat 500, the Arco floor lamp: you know the list, and so does every airport bookshop and first-year design student. This column will discuss, poke, investigate, prod, ridicule and beatify the less glamorous Italian objects. They are the ones you ought to know, so that when you visit Italy, or spot apparitions of it on a friend’s social media, you can smugly point out: ‘Did you know the mosquito coil is a masterpiece of Italian design? The condom? The motorway toll transponder?’ Objects so ordinary that Italians walk past them, or handle them every day, without registering that someone, with a mellifluous surname, designed them.

Proust wrote a seven-volume novel because a small cake dipped in tea, the madeleine, unlocked an involuntary flood of memory. For followers of the Italian version of this column, published weekly in Il Sole 24 Ore, the nation’s favourite Sunday read, perhaps these objects will have a similar effect. For you, anglophone readers peering at this somewhere between Rummidge and Euforia, they offer something else: beach conversation topics, an eye trained on unexpected places, and perhaps a few new madeleines for when you visit the peninsula yourself. After all, objects are never just objects. As the great Milanese designer Achille Castiglioni of Arco-floor-lamp fame once declared: ‘objects should keep us company’. Especially during this scorching summer.

carlorattiassociati.com

Syn Architects in Saudi Arabia makes it into the Wallpaper* Architects’ Directory 2026, our latest annual round-up of exciting emerging architecture studios.

Who: Syn Architects

Focusing on ecologically sensitive architectural design, Syn Architects was founded in 2018 by Saudi architects Sara Alissa and Nojoud Alsudairi. The creative duo looks to create buildings that are contextually aware. Each project’s aesthetics are extracted from nature, and express the beauty of where each material is found.

While working to create innovative designs that contribute to the collective urban environment, Alissa and Alsudairi have also established the Um Slaim collective, a critical investigation into the displacement of vernacular Najdi architecture in central Riyadh. They are also the co-founders of saudirchitecture.org, an independent organisation that aims to research and archive modernist and post-modernist buildings in Saudi Arabia.

‘We are curious about how people live and how space can quietly shape everyday life,’ share Alissa and Alsudairi. ‘We are motivated by the idea that spaces should not only perform well, but also create a sense of atmosphere and belonging.’ Together, they examine a place, the people and climate, and let these conditions inform the design, they explain: ‘This process allows us to create spaces that feel thoughtful, contextual and quietly distinctive.’

What makes their work stand out is the understanding that a project will evolve based on its cultural, environmental, and material contexts. By not imposing a predetermined style, they create spaces that feel rooted and timeless.

What: Project Orion

In Najd, the central part of Saudi Arabia, traditional houses are built from mudbricks, while the roofs and doors are made from tamarisk wood. Using this as inspiration, Syn Architects created Project Orion. Rather than a single residence, the project comprises three villas and is a contemporary response to traditional architecture.

Located in Alkhozama, Riyadh, the residences embody spatial values, using privacy as the driving factor to shape how the homes are inhabited. As a result, the projects showcase how openness, light, and outdoor living can coexist with seclusion.

Three main volumes were carefully situated to allow natural light throughout the interiors, while balancing selective views. The complex’s limestone facade highlights its fortress-like silhouette, which merges into the landscape.

Say the architects: ‘We strive to challenge the architectural process by finding alternative approaches to creating environments that are mixed, inclusive, and accessible, where different people can get together.’

Why: Architects Directory 2026

When the Wallpaper* Architects’ Directory was conceived in 2000, it was built as our bespoke international index of emerging architectural talent. Now in its 25th edition, our annual listing of promising practices from across the globe (now comprising over 500 alumni) champions the best and most promising young studios - a snapshot of talent showcasing inspiring work from all corners of the Earth with an emphasis on the residential realm.

This year’s anniversary survey includes 30 young studios (one for each of the 30 years of Wallpaper*), from Australia, Bahrain, Benin, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Denmark, Ecuador, Ghana, Greece, France, Ivory Coast, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Kuwait, India, Morocco, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, the UK, the USA, and Vietnam. Welcome to the promise, ideas and exciting architecture of the Wallpaper* Architects’ Directory 2026.

One of the project’s key adaptive and contextual solutions is its recessed balconies. Instead of the typical jutting-outwards form these features usually take, here, terraces are carved into the mass of the building, providing both privacy and shade. Balancing a sense of cool sturdiness, as well as a play of shadow and light, Project Orion feels deeply rooted in place while also offering a contemporary flair to the city’s landscape.

syn.sa

Did you hear? The bathroom is the most precious room of the house: part wellness space, part intimate sanctuary, it is the private heart of a home and one that has often been overlooked. We round up four contemporary bathroom design ideas that our team created from this year's boldest bathroom launches – many spotted at Salone del Mobile – accessorised with unexpected design gestures that bring excitement to the washroom.

Browse our bathroom design ideas imagined to elevate the formerly humble room, from bold materiality to serene colour palettes, from unexpected wallcovering that add warmth to the room to spatial design that transforms a practical room into a refined, modern temple to the art of wellness.

Bathroom design trends to elevate your wellness space in 2027

Bold materials

Yes, traditional bathroom materials might be practical, but combine dynamic tiling and marble and top it off with brushed stainless steel for a modern take on the washroom. Laufen's 'Rivo’ washbasin’, in brushed stainless steel, is both utilitarian and elegant - accents like a wooden screen or a wall-mounted steel vase bring the room together in refined ways.

‘Pantàlica’ limited-edition screen, by Nicolò Spinelli, for Studio Twenty Seven. ‘Rivo’ washbasin’, by Laufen. ‘Flora’ basin levers, by Vincent Van Duysen, for Fantini. Oregano soap, by Loewe. Fleur Éclair eau de parfum, by Régime des Fleurs. Steel wall vase, by Eitan Boiarsky, from Tage Gallery. ‘Beaton’ double-ended bath in gloss, ‘Ten Ten’ bath/shower mixer with handwheels on standpipes in silver nickel, both by Lefroy Brooks. ‘Dots Glass’ wall lamp, by Martín Azúa, for Vibia. Terry towel in Yellow Ochre, by Tekla. ‘Mid’ wall tiles in Ambra and Turchese, price on request, by Ragno. ‘Santafiora Venata’ floor slabs, by Margraf

Design with tiles

A tile can go a long way if the colour is right, and a bold colour combination can offer unexpectedly serene interiors. We chose Florim's 'SensiColore' tiles in moss with burgundy accents, and arranged them structurally to design the room. The rich hues of the tiles perfectly frame our sunken bath and give a serene, peaceful mood to the space.

‘OG-NM301' stainless steel stool, by Andrea Ferrari, for Quadro Design and NM3. Terry towel in Forest Green, by Tekla. Scent of Marihuana soap, by Loewe. True Ionized Cleansing Water 1, by Buly 1803. Rock River Melody eau de parfum; Fleur Éclair eau de parfum, by Régime des Fleurs. ‘Nuio Duo Zen Edition' bathtub, by Stefan Diez, for Kaldewei. ‘Diametro 35 S' deck-mounted bath mixers, by Ritmonio. ‘SensiColore' tiles in Vino and Muschio, by Matteo Thun and Benedetto Fasciana, for Florim

Unexpected wallcoverings

A perfect backdrop for our sculptural bathroom set up is offered by this wall panelling that adds warmth to the room. The Canaletto Walnut wall panelling from Florim is a perfect way to bring visual richness to this temple of wellness, that feels more like a sophisticated cabin in the woods than a room for quotidian routines.

‘Greenwich’ towel in Rhus, by Baina. ‘Cenote’ bathtub, from by Patricia Urquiola, for Agape. ‘Flora’ floorstanding bath mixer, by Vincent Van Duysen, for Fantini. ‘Settecento Cut’ washbasin in Bianco, by Giulio Cappellini, for Ceramica Flaminia. ‘FFQT’ basin mixers, by Formafantasma, for Quadro Design. ‘Crea’ wall panelling, by Marazzi. ‘SensiColore’ wall tiles in Vino, by Matteo Thun and Benedetto Fasciana, for Florim

Similarly, the Schotten & Hansen Ridgeline wall panelling is 'inspired by the rugged beauty of split wood and the deep, time-worn tones of oak': a concept that perfectly encapsulates the new tonal and material approach of these rooms. Here, the material is accompanies by a chromatic takeover in the form of tiling and textiles: the Albers-inspired tiles on the floor and the grand curtain at the back help create a space you'll want to get lost in.

‘Allure’ wall-mounted double-movement mixer, by Natalino Malasorti, for Ceadesign. Fleur Éclair eau de parfum, by Régime des Fleurs. True Ionized Cleansing Water 1, by Buly 1803. ‘Arc’ sconce in Satin Black, by De Troupe ‘Reverie’ freestanding bath, by Kohler. ‘Axor Uno’ curved floorstanding bath spout, by Phoenix Design, for Axor. ‘Adamo & Eva’ cotton velvet in 143, by Dedar. ‘Tabouret Meribel’ stool, by Charlotte Perriand, for Cassina. ‘Celeste & Chalk’ towels, by Baina. ‘Ridgeline’ wall panelling, by Torben Hansen and Francisco Cortina, for Schotten & Hansen. ‘Homage to the Square’ floor tiles in Sea, by the Josef & Anni Albers Foundation, for Mutina

Modern sanctuaries

Think of a bathroom as a temple of wellness: a space where symmetry, dramatic lighting and bold structural detail come together to celebrate the act (and art) of bathing. In our space, the elegant centrepiece of the basin is flanked by discreet shower mixers, and the porcelain-effect wallcovering (in a shade that bears the evocative name of 'Magma') offers a delicious accompaniment to the space's visual effect.

‘Octo’ built-in thermostatic shower mixers with two stop valves, by David Lopez Quincoces; ‘Bar 59’ 50mm rain jet shower heads, by Matteo Fiorini with Studio Lys, all for Zucchetti. ‘Orfeo’ mirrors; ‘Teseo’ washbasin, by Andrea Parisio and Giuseppe Pezzano, for Ceramica Cielo. ‘Vice Versa’ towel in Terracotta, by Hermès. ‘Diametro 35 S’ exposed single-lever basin mixers, by Ritmonio. Oregano liquid soap, Tomato Leaves soap, both by Loewe. ‘Éclos’ surface in Wondr, by Cosentino. ‘Grande Lume’ slabs in Magma, by Marazzi

This Italian seafood specialist began life on Milan’s Via Savona in 2007 before expanding to two further sites in Italy’s fashion and design capital, then opening outposts in the favoured grazing spots of the international jet-set: the Cheval Blanc Paris; Porto Cervo on Sardinia and Paraggi Bay on the Italian Riviera; a mountaintop in St Moritz. Now it’s arrived at The OWO, the former Old War Office reborn as a Raffles hotel, but with its own dedicated entrance on Whitehall Place so you never feel like you’re actually in a hotel. It’s proved to be an instant hit with London’s Italian expats; needless to say, you should dress up as if for Milan Fashion Week when dining here.

Wallpaper* dines at Langosteria London

The mood: Whitehall’s Italian job

Italian architect Carlo Samarati was also behind the look of the Langosterias in Milan and Paraggi and died before he completed the London outpost. The group’s founder, Enrico Buonocore, describes Samarati as ‘a dear friend of mine whose untimely passing left a deep void,’ though Langosteria London stands as a fitting tribute.

A travertine and Italian walnut counter in the bar sets the tone, with bottle-green Verde Alpi marble floors flowing through into the more casual of the two dining rooms, with alcove seating along one side and a wine wall dividing the space from the Historical Room beyond. This is the former meeting room of the Old War Office, where original stone fireplaces and stucco ceilings contrast with hand-painted, hand-embroidered silk wallcoverings by Misha. Guests sit on custom-made chairs by Medea and dine at Molteni tables, flatteringly lit by bespoke Venini lamps.

‘We wanted to respect the architecture of the Old War Office while injecting it with a sense of Italian hospitality and effortless elegance,’ Buonocore says. ‘The core intention was to marry the excellence of Italian design with Britain’s majestic historical legacy.’

The food: A taste of Milan

While the menu features classic Italian fish and seafood of fritto misto and sea bass in a salt crust, the kitchen goes beyond the familiar with signature dishes imported from Milan: chateaubriand of black grouper, say, or orecchiette damare, a dish so well-timed it is almost impossible to differentiate between the springy texture of the sautéed seafood and the al dente pasta.

It is simple cooking constructed from high-quality Italian ingredients – Sicilian langoustine, Mediterranean yellowtail – and presented with a creative flourish. A carpaccio of tonno rosso has ruby-fleshed tuna sliced into ribbons and folded like the petals of a rose, with an almost liquid centre of candied tomato and basil. The Sardinian speciality of Mazzancolle prawns ‘alla catalana’ has a pair of fat pink prawns on a bed of Camone tomato, celery and red onion: an eye-catchingly alluring assembly of fresh, vivid flavours and vibrant colours.

Finish with a wobbly tiramisu; its creaminess is more at the macchiato than espresso end of the coffee spectrum. For something equally sweet but with considerably more kick, order a Prince Alfonso, an in-house cocktail creation that combines Zacapa 23 rum with Dubonnet and aged cherry: truly the cherry on top of a very glamorous cake.

Langosteria London is located at Whitehall Place, London SW1A 2BD, United Kingdom

At the top of a flight of stairs at Alara in Lagos, are carefully arranged photographs lined in white and dark walls. In them, a father holds his son’s arm, as a mother does her young daughter’s. A preacher speaks with his brother. A woman shops in a mall. An Eyo masquerade stands between two women. A group of children plays. The subjects are all dressed in white garments, a visual marker that identifies them as members of different religious communities that emerged from the Aladura movement.

But collectively, they form What Comes to Mind When You See the Garment?, Stephen Tayo’s new exhibition, on show now until September 20th.

Since 2022, the Nigerian photographer has been developing this ongoing documentary project across five cities across Nigeria, Benin Republic and the U.S and adds to the conversation of the migrational story of the Aludara movement– 'a strand of pentecostal Christianity that emerged among the Yoruba communities in the 1910s and 1920s'

Meaning 'people of prayer', Aladura churches are distinguished by fervent prayer, prophecy, healing, fasting and visions, weaving Christian doctrine with Yoruba modes of worship and expression. That synthesis has also made the movement a subject of suspicion and misunderstanding. For decades, Nigerian popular culture, particularly Nollywood, has repeatedly used white-garment churches as visual shorthand for supernatural narratives. The garment has consequently accumulated associations with spiritual danger, possession, dubious prophecy and ritual, even when the people wearing it are simply moving through their ordinary religious lives.

In this exhibition, Tayo combines sound, film, photography while also experimenting on other elements like printing on textiles and metal. Some of the works are presented in light boxes inspired by churches' offering boxes and other design elements found within the church. There are also dreamlike textures that evoke intimacy such as the soft blur of a sister finding solace in another’s arms.

Tayo is not simply capturing his subjects as a photographer. As a philosophy graduate of the University of Lagos, he is also asking viewers to interrogate the ideas the media has weaponised to shape biases around the Aladura movement.

Wallpaper*: How did the idea for this project come to you?

Stephen Tayo: I wanted to use the work to find a balance with things I've always thought about, especially ideas that have stayed with me over the years. A lot of them are conditioned knowledge, or inherited knowledge, from growing up with my mother. Sometimes she would tell me not to do something, but there wouldn't really be an explanation. It was almost an avoidance of the conversation itself.

I've always been very curious and very critical about so many things, and I felt there was an opportunity for me to develop my own perspective, to arrive at my own expression of the world. I wanted to ask myself: what are the things I'm actually thinking about? How do I look at something and make sense of it on my own terms?

When I started thinking about the series, I kept coming back to one question: What comes to mind when you see the garment? At some point I realised that's the title. It came quite naturally. I had been exploring different ideas, but that question stayed with me. I was deeply curious. I also wanted to decongest everything I had heard about the white garment churches, the Aladura movement. I'd absorbed so much information over the years, and I wanted to spend time with it, to develop my own understanding from a visual perspective.

W*: Why did you decide to shoot the project in black and white? Was that a very intentional decision?

ST: It was, but it also happened quite organically. I shoot film as well, and when I began working on the project I was using a 35mm camera. At the time I was living in Olowogbowo on Lagos Island, and I happened to start photographing the series on black-and-white film. When I developed the negatives and saw the images, I thought, “This is really nice.” There was something about them that immediately felt right. Even when I continued the project on my Fujifilm digital camera, I carried that same visual language across. I based the digital setup on the look and feel of those first developed film photographs.

Once I saw those initial tests, it just made sense. It looked right, and it felt like the perfect decision. In the end, shooting the series in black and white became a very effortless choice.

W*: Were you trying to challenge people's assumptions through this exhibition? When we see the white garment, do we immediately think of spirituality, or controversy? Popular culture and film have often portrayed the white garment church through a particular, sometimes even demonic, lens. Were you trying to make people reconsider those associations?

ST: Very much so. My approach was quite epistemological. I wanted us to investigate our own knowledge again, to take a second look at something that we've inherited a particular understanding of. So much of what we know has been transferred to us. I wanted people to pause, to think, and then think again. I wanted the work to create a space where we could question our own beliefs and assumptions.

When you think about religion in Nigeria today, there's also been a shift. Social media has changed how churches present themselves. Years ago, depending on the church you belonged to, appearing on television or online was often frowned upon. Today, many churches actively use social media as a tool for communication and outreach. That shift interested me, but I also wanted to broaden the conversation beyond religion itself. I wanted to think about our belief systems, our thought processes, and what happens when our eyes come into contact with something that is deeply Nigerian. The white garment is one of the strongest visual identifiers of Nigerian Christianity. It's become part of our cultural identity, not just within Nigeria but across the diaspora. You see white garment churches in London, New York, Atlanta and elsewhere. If someone sees a white garment in Peckham, for example, there's an immediate recognition; "That's Nigerian." That cultural association fascinated me, and I wanted the work to explore that.

W*: Many of the photographs don't show people's faces directly. Why so?

ST: There are actually different kinds of images in the series. Some are frontal portraits, some are taken from the side, but the majority are made from an observational perspective. They're not staged. This body of work requires observation. It requires me to spend time looking, watching and responding to moments as they unfold. I wanted viewers to feel that sense of observation, to feel as though they were witnessing something rather than simply looking at a portrait. Some of the photographs were made with people looking directly into the camera, but many of the works selected for this exhibition were intentionally chosen because they maintain that observational point of view.

W*: Why did it take so long to release the project?

ST: It was actually shown at the International Center of Photography in New York in 2024. Personally, I love my process. I like taking my time to develop a body of work because it becomes part of you. You want to make sure you've really thought through every aspect of it, not just making the photographs, but also how the work is produced, how it's exhibited and how it exists in the world. There are different phases to every project. I don't think I consciously decided to delay showing it. I think it was more that the longer I spent with the project, the more I learned from it. When you're working on personal projects, you're also balancing commissioned work, so sometimes you have to pause, take on other assignments, and then come back to it. That's really what was happening.

W*: What was the reaction of the people you photographed?

ST: It was very welcoming. Whenever I visited a church or a community, I introduced myself and explained that I was working on a project. These days, people usually ask to see your portfolio, which often just means your Instagram. They'd look at my work and say, "Oh, nice. Congratulations. Let us know if you need anything." That openness gave me confidence to continue working from my own point of view. Of course, when I'm photographing on the street, I don't necessarily announce myself. But when I enter churches or more intimate spaces, I always introduce myself first. After that, I take a step back because the work depends on observation. I walk around, spend time in the space, and wait until I encounter something that speaks to me.

The process has been incredibly rewarding because I've learned so much, not only about photography but also about myself. I've discovered different ways of using my camera and different ways of producing work. The more you practise, the more you understand how you want to work within different conversations. For me, that's what keeps me in love with photography. I enjoy learning while I'm making the work, and that openness has shaped the way I think.

There are so many layers to working on a long-term project. Sometimes you make a few images and think you'll return the following month, but then you're busy with commercial assignments and you have to wait. That teaches you commitment. It teaches patience. It reminds you that meaningful work takes time. That's why I describe it as an ongoing project. In a year, two years or even five years, it may become something else entirely. Leaving it open allows me to keep discovering new approaches.

W*: Did the project challenge your own assumptions about religion and spirituality in Nigeria?

ST: Absolutely. First of all, I'm a Christian, and like anyone else, I carry my own assumptions. None of us approaches these subjects without preconceived ideas. When I decided to make this project, I deliberately trained myself to be more open. I saw it as a learning process. My interest was primarily in the physicality of the church rather than its spirituality, even though the visual expression inevitably carries spiritual meaning. Once you spend time there, you begin to see other things. You notice a sense of purity, love and community that isn't always obvious from the outside.

Because my focus was on what we can actually see, I had to approach the work as a student. I wanted to learn first and then develop my own understanding of these spaces and the conversations surrounding them.

‘What Comes to Mind When You See the Garment?’ is on view until 20 September 2026, at Alara, Lagos

Known as 'King of Lucite', American designer Charles Hollis Jones focused his entire career on creating highly extravagant, transparent bespoke furniture pieces to become a leader of 1970s Hollywood interior glamour. Last week, Jones died at the age of 81.

I met Jones in his studio in Burbank, California in 2016. He showed me around his creative space and talked about his prolific career. He was just 16 years old when he moved from his native Indiana to Los Angeles, where he founded his own brand, CHJ. From the beginning he started to specialize in then innovative material – Lucite (a specific, brand name for acrylic material) – and imagined unique sculptural interior objects, which soon gained considerable attention of wealthy clients. Frank Sinatra, Lucille Ball, Johnny Carson, Steve McQueen and Dean Martin were among some celebrities to commission Jones to design pieces for their homes.

Other famous clients followed including Diana Ross, Johnny Mathis, Muhammad Ali, Sylvester Stallone and Kelly Lynch.

'Lucite was not my first choice. I really loved glass, but it could not do what I wanted it to do, so I decided to devote my career to acrylic instead,' said Jones about his material choice which defined his entire oeuvre.

Besides famous Hollywood celebrities, Jones also started to collaborate with the leading interior decorators and architects of his time, including Arthur Elrod, Paul László, Hal Broderick and John Lautner, with whom he collaborated on more than a dozen of projects.

The memorable collaboration with Lautner was very important for Jones, who showed me many pictures of the original interiors furnished for Lautner. He created hundreds of acrylic furniture pieces for Lautner's projects, including few pieces for the legendary residence of interior decorator Arthur Elrod in Palm Springs in 1969. This desert concrete house then became a cultural icon of the 1960s when it appeared in James Bond's Diamonds are Forever movie.

After working for renowned interior showroom Hudson-Rissman in Los Angeles, Jones established his own store, offering a wide assortment of acrylic pieces, ranging from furniture and lighting to sculptural objects and accessories. One of his most iconic designs of the late 1960s and early 1970s is without a doubt the Edison Lamp, created in 1970. The transparency of the lamp pays tribute to the original Thomas Edison's light bulb, leaving it exposed to be admired as a piece of technology.

Jones also collaborated with country musician Tennessee Williams, for whom he created signature Wisteria chair in 1968. Composed of intersecting sheets of acrylic, the chair is the abstract sculptural composition of almost invisible appearance, as most of the transparent acrylic Jones's pieces, including award-winning collections Fleur de Lis, Waterfall or Metric.

Since the early 1980s, Jones continued to produce and sell acrylic pieces in his showrooms but mostly directly to his clients and interior decorators. Later on, his work was largely forgotten until the early 2000s, when it began to show up in the secondary market. Today, most of Jones's vintage pieces are rare collectibles and Jones himself is considered as one of the most important figures of the 20th-century American studio furniture movement.

Berkeley’s reputation as a hotbed of technological innovation is also mirrored by its architectural legacy. This house by Donald Olsen at 775 San Diego Road is looking for only its third custodian since it was completed in 1954, built for pioneering Silicon Valley engineer and physicist Arthur Frederic Kip.

The Kip House was commissioned in 1952. Kip (1910 – 1995) spent a quarter of a century at the UC Berkeley physics department working in experimental physics, helping lay the foundations for the semiconductor industry that would eventually transform the fortune, demographic and global importance of this part of Northern California.

Kip was also an admirer of European modernism and the ethos and approach of the Bauhaus. Following World War II (in which he served in Anti-Submarine Warfare Research), he was in a position to commission a bright young local architect, Donald Olsen, to design a house that reflected his aesthetic preferences and professional ethos. The house was to exemplify ‘precision, clarity, logic, and innovation.’

Olsen (1919-2015) was a disciple of Walter Gropius, one of many pioneering German architects and designers who had arrived in America via the UK following their escape from pre-war Germany. Olsen studied under Gropius at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, eventually going on to work for Eliel and Eero Saarinen, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and Californian firm Wurster, Bernardi & Emmons, responsible for Case Study House #3.

On his own, Donald Olsen never lost sight of European Modernism, even as many of his contemporaries went on to evolve the style to create the timeless form of Mid-Century Modernism that has become so closely associated with the West Coast. The Kip House serves as a transitionary work. The rigour and simplicity of the front façade is clearly Bauhaus-inspired, but as the house steps up the hillside it opens up into the wooded landscape, becoming more intimate and low-key.

Kip’s house sits alongside Olsen’s own house, now listed on the National Register of Historic Places and a City of Berkeley Landmark, and was published in the influential Arts & Architecture magazine in 1954. The house’s position on the slope is fully exploited by Olsen’s split-level plan, which incorporates a living space across the upper floor, set beneath the shallow pitched roof.

The main living space at the front of the house has a proto-high tech balcony cantilevered out from the façade, alongside a living area and study. Steps in the centre of the plan lead down to a kitchen and dining room with direct access on to the deck and rear yard. In total, there’s 5,706 SF of outdoor space, and 1,904 SF of indoor space, as well as a car port.

The architectural arrangement allows the occupants to live in the treetops, along with the primary bedroom suite at the rear of the property. Two additional bedrooms are located on the lower level.

Following the death of Kip’s wife Joan, the house went on to be owned by a prominent local lawyer who proved to be a sympathetic custodian of this unique house. She engaged architectural historian Pierluigi Serraino to document the house’s history and consult on subtle but necessary updates to preserve its unique qualities. Now a new owner is required to continue the legacy.

Kip House, Berkeley, is for sale at $1,425,000 through Anna Bellemo of District Homes, 775SanDiego.com, Anna.District-Homes.com

Each year, Monterey Car Week culminates in the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance event, held on the Pacific-side greens of this ultra-exclusive northern Californian golf club. Alongside multiple new reveals and iconic classics, the event’s 75th edition saw the hammer fall on three-quarters of a billion dollars’ worth of historic metal, a new record.

The 2026 edition of Monterey Car Week wrapped up on August 16th after ten days of reveal events peppered across the picturesque Californian peninsula against a backdrop of the lavish and loving display of hundreds of classic cars. The week centres around the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, the world’s largest automotive affair also turned heads with its record-breaking auction sales, courtesy of sales by RM Sotheby’s, Gooding Christie’s, Bonhams and Broad Arrow.

In all, sales totalled $755.6 million (£558.7 million), with modern cars occupying over half of the handshakes. Eleven cars saw buyers for $10 million (£7.4 million) or more while the highest price tag was a 1964 Shelby Cobra Daytona Coupe which sold for $42.905 million (£31.758 million). Designed by Pete Brock, the vehicle was produced only in six editions, including this auctioned chassis CSX2300 which was once owned by Carroll Shelby himself.

There was also the remarkable sight of the first-ever Ferrari Luce selling for no less than $40m through RM Sotheby’s, a result notable for many reasons, not least for being the highest ever price realised for a brand-new car (let alone becoming the most expensive EV ever sold). The buyer is reputedly a serial offender at the art of transforming cars into big-ticket auction records; the Luce lucre was effectively handed, less commission, straight into the coffers of Ferrari’s charitable arm.

The concentration of the world’s top car designers, brands, collectors, and aficionados on this breezy, historic West Coast grounds lent itself – unsurprisingly - to a social affair centred around buzzing displays, test rides, and after-hours gatherings. Just like other niche industries such as art, watch, and furniture, luxury automotive sector also thrives on desire, innovation, and the oomph effect.

One of the premium events of the week is The Quail, a high-end car show with a big sticker ticket price and a host of niche and premium brands jostling to show their wares to their target demographic. Across the packed itinerary, standouts included Cadillac’s main event, Curated by Cadillac ESCALADE IQ, which celebrated the all-electric flagship SUV for a customised experience. The concierge-led program allows customers to craft their very own vehicles through a generous option palette which reaches up to a million permutations, including 106 colours.

According to the brand’s executive design director Dominic Najafi, ‘the real twist’ in their broad offering is the addition of a new Santorini Blue pipping. ‘You normally wouldn’t see such colouring in piping in combination with tan and grey interiors,’ he told Wallpaper*. Najafi sees this accent as part of their emphasis on ‘expressing American luxury,’ and added: ‘We are not just copying rituals from Europe – we are creating a distinctive American experience.’

The Detroit-born 124-year-old manufacturer’s other offering was V-One, a new medley concept of their signature V-series with a single-seat competitive spirit innate to race cars. The hardware specific to racing is alchemised with a human touch that focuses on driver comfort and confidence. ‘If it doesn’t make the car go faster, we don’t put it in,’ said Sean O’Shea, Propulsion Manager of Cadillac’s LMDh series, about the concentrated tight design vision.

O'Shea added that the interior team uses similar materials in such a specific vehicle but translates their understanding of ‘luxury into a pure performance environment.’ Najafi also noted that the main design challenge was to represent the impression of the night in the car’s outfit. Rather than simply choosing a black finish, the team created a nocturnal effect with paintwork which yields flakes of blue when the sun hits the grey surface.

Lamborghini, on the other hand, joined the spectacle with Revuelto SV, a lineage that the Bolognese luxury car maker started 55 years ago. In this upgrade, a lightweight body and optimised aerodynamics result in a vehicle that can speed up to 345 kilometres per hour, which makes this version of Super Veloce the fastest Lamborghini car produced in Sant’Agata Bolognese. Black accents and a redesigned fierce SV logo on both sides convey a sharp statement of luxury.

Among the world debuts was RUF’s new performance car, Ehra, named as a nod to Phil Hill’s victory at the Ehra-Lessien proving ground in 1987. Given the vehicle’s historic homage, a nostalgic form outfits a 650-horsepower engineering in a bold hue of grey; inside, titanium pedals and hand-stitched light brown flag pattern and matte carbon trim accompany lollipop seats in a light brown hue which provides a dramatic but comforting completeness.

The Audi Nuvolari made its US debut at The Quail after first appearing at Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc during the Monaco Grand Prix in June. The first modern supercar to come out under the vision of the German car manufacturer’s chief creative officer Massimo Frascella, the hyper halo car will be produced in an edition of 499.

The hybrid vehicle speaks with its futuristic, almost mysterious, body dressed in a moody titanium skin. The ability to reach 349 kilometres per hour is matched with a design and experience-forward philosophy which is evident in a low mid-engine body and a seamless appearance. The car later went on to the prestigious Concept Lawn at Pebble Beach, where it was seen alongside other recent design studies like the Vision BMW Alpina, the Bugatti Destrier and the Aston Martin Valen.

The main event was soundtracked by growling engines and echoing conversations and perfumed by the unmistakable tang of oil, petrol and faded leather. The Concours d’Elegance competition is scattered across the ocean-side golf course, with 218 cars representing an impressive slice of automotive history.

This year, Best in Show went to a 1935 Duesenberg SSJ Special Speedster originally owned by Clark Gable and presented by one Harry Yeaggy of Cincinnati, Ohio. A classic piece of inter-war design, it brought the event’s timeless sense of American luxury into sharp focus.

WhatsUpMonterey.com, Cadillac.com, @Cadillac / RUF-Automobile.de, @RUFsince1939 / Audi.com, @AudiUSA

The Balearic island of Mallorca has long been a refuge for artists and writers. The island – with its rugged mountains, white sand beaches and hidden rocky coves – is said to possess a mystical kind of energy that emanates from its dramatic landscape, which has long attracted artistic outsiders and bohemian types. No part of the island has become more of a creative meeting place than Deià, a hilltop village on the island’s mountainous west coast. And now, to honour that history, the legendary La Residencia, A Belmond Hotel, is drawing on the island’s creative legacy with its new collaboration with the Spanish fashion house Loewe and its annual Loewe Foundation Craft Prize, a rotating artist residency that sees former finalists installed in the storied hotel for two-month-long residencies, starting with the Japanese artist Kaori Juzu.

The drive to Deià from the bustling city of Palma de Mallorca is a striking one. The terrain starts out flat and slightly sunburnt, with almond farms and cyclists zipping past you on either side. But as you approach the Serra de Tramuntana mountains, the road becomes circuitous, winding up the steep hills as the landscape becomes rocky and intensely green. Eventually, after twisting upwards for about half an hour, the sea materialises at the bottom of a steep cliff, stretching out before you like a painted backdrop. The town of Deià itself is a cascade of sand-toned stone houses that lead to a centuries-old church at the crest of the hill. In the evening, a warm light paints the rugged mountains that cradle the sleepy town like a catcher’s mitt, fading into shades of pink and orange as the sun moves through the sky.

When it was founded in the medieval period by the Moors, Deià was a strategic settlement. Its elevated hilltop position allowed for visibility across the coastline, meaning it was relatively cut off from invaders and safe from roving Mediterranean pirates. In the 19th century, European noble families would come here to convalesce thanks to its mild weather and clean mountain air. The Polish pianist Frédéric Chopin, for instance, famously spent several months in the nearby town of Valldemossa, recovering from tuberculosis. In the 1930s, international artists discovered Deià’s peculiar magic when the British writer Robert Graves made this place his home. Others followed, including Anaïs Nin and Pablo Picasso.

That tradition is being continued by the artist and jewellery designer Kaori Juzu, who lived and worked in La Residencia this summer. The Fukuoka-born Juzu was nominated for the Loewe Foundation Craft Prize in 2023 for her intricate creations made out of bent copper and powdered enamel. ‘I start by fusing the metal to create these shapes,’ explains Juzu of her process. ‘And then I colour them with the enamel, which is actually powdered glass. I sift it over the surface and fire it several times to create a unique surface depth and colour.’

The piece that caught the attention of the Loewe Craft Prize jury was a series of 108 tiny compositions arranged in a grid on a white canvas, each of them a unique abstraction. ‘The number 108 is very significant for Japanese Buddhism,’ she says, noting that on New Year's Eve it is customary to ring temple bells 108 times. The coin-sized forms that make up the composition call to mind the colourful abstractions of Memphis Group prints, rendered minuscule in colour-drenched metal planes. Her more recent work, meanwhile, embraces more earthy, natural hues: tones that recall the greens of olive leaves or the mother-of-pearl sheen of oyster shells.

During her stint in Mallorca, Juzu has experimented with new shades and forms. Every morning before the gardeners arrive on the property – which sprawls over a series of olive-tree-studded stepped terraces in the centre of town – to clean up fallen leaves and wilted blooms, she slips out and gathers them herself to bring back to her studio. She then creates two-dimensional arrangements laid out on a canvas on the studio’s flagstone floor to inspire new colour combinations for her work.

‘Artists in Residencia’ is just the latest creative initiative for La Residencia, A Belmond Hotel, which, from 2023 to 2024, collaborated with Galleria Continua. That partnership saw the hotel host a series of artists, including Daniel Buren and Arcangelo Sassolino as part of the gallery’s ‘MITICO’ series, alongside emerging talents such as Liang Fu and Berta De La Rosa. The hotel also boasts an extensive permanent collection, including a vast array of works by Joan Miró in its Miró restaurant, named in honour of the Spanish painter and sculptor. Following Juzu’s stay at La Residencia, the hotel will host ceramic artist Deirdre McLoughlin and textile artist Dahye Jeong – both part of previous editions of the Loewe Foundation Craft Prize – continuing to nurture a new generation of artists in this storied Mallorcan town.

belmond.com

Will the Swiss watchmaking industry remain dominant, as it has, arguably, for the last 40 or so years? Jean-Christophe Babin, appointed last year as the CEO of LVMH Watches - after stints as CEO of Tag Heuer and then Bulgari, both brands in the LVMH stable - suggests that it should not assume as much.

For one, he says, there is the rise of Chinese watchmaking, once focused around cheap knock-offs, now increasingly developing its own watch brands with distinctive designs and imported Japanese movements. And then there is the constant need to offer something more than function, which perhaps giant Japanese makers the likes of Casio and Seiko are, he suggests, too focused on.

So what will keep Swiss watches ahead? Story-telling, he suggests. 'Yes, a luxury watch today needs to be founded on a strong brand reputation, or have iconic models - Rolex and Cartier are, for example, the only brands that have the Ballon Bleu or the Daytona,' says Babin. 'Yet even icons have to evolve. The latest Finisssmo from Bulgari, for instance, is a more balanced watch, a different kind of Finissimo, with proportioning that means it can be worn every day, which it wasn’t perhaps before.

'But the Swiss watch ideally tells a story too - and not one necessarily that comes as a result of just being on the market a long time,' stresses Babin, who is also president of Geneva Watch Days, the event he co-founded during Covid, when watch fairs looked to be all but dead. It brings dozens of brands together across Geneva to show their wares and, critically, do so to the public, for free. 'Bulgari’s Serpenti watch, for example, has only been on the market since 2010 but looks to the kind of bracelets worn in Rome 2000 years ago. Creating that kind of narrative that puts a watch company in a much stronger position than a one that’s just been launched, without yet either resources or history.'

Nor is finding such an arresting story the only challenge. Babin concedes that for the big brands the volume market - which he suggests is for watches priced around €2000 to €8000 - is going to get increasingly tough, both because it’s only economical if it sells a lot of watches, and because new start-up brands are now offering consumers more affordable rival options often made with the same components. 'Keep in mind too that even big brands have small market shares,' he warns.

He would also like to see these brands take a bolder, more radical stance when it comes to design, both because that’s way to carve out a strong market position - it was Babin who drove Tag Heuer’s move towards developing luxury connected watches, a segment it now commands - but also because the industry tends to underplay the notion that most watch customers fall in love with a look, not a movement.

'The engine,' he says, 'has to be mobilised for the design. The aesthetic comes first. We have to invest more in desirability so purchasing a watch in that price bracket isn’t a once in the lifetime event but perhaps one that happens every few years, so those people who didn’t plan to buy a watch at all will do so. If that sector wants to survive long term there are few other options. For me the job is about encouraging brands to be more ambitious.'

Not that Babin thinks that the Swiss watch industry is on some kind of precipice. He has, after all, been here before: 'My career has gone through five or six financial crises, the pandemic, wars, and I think as an industry will see more and more of those kinds of challenges,' he says. 'But if I was reasonably successful it was because I never accepted that events meant the brands I managed wouldn’t remain strong and profitable, even if they didn’t [always] grow.'

The seventh edition of Geneva Watch Days will be September 2nd to 6th. See gva-watch-days.com

How ultra-processed is the built world around us? The answer, for now at least, is very.

Highly manufactured building materials, many of them chemically engineered, reign supreme in modern construction. From our homes and offices to schools and hospitals, we are surrounded by polymers, sealants, adhesives and synthetic composites.

What is ultra-processed architecture?

The result? Often, a homogeneous, mass-produced design with an unhealthy side of toxicity. 'We are, quite literally, living in a plastic world,' says Gina Ciganik, chief executive of Habitable, an organisation focused on reducing the use of hazardous chemicals in building products. 'We need to start thinking a lot more about what we are surrounding ourselves with and breathing in. With 2.5 trillion sq ft of real estate projected to be built by 2060, the materials we choose going forward really matter.'

Thankfully, a shift is underway. Just as we are becoming more aware of the detrimental effects of ultra-processed food on our bodies and minds, so are we beginning to question our exposure to highly processed – and potentially toxic - materials in our buildings. 'We are starting to understand that making our buildings, spaces and places healthier is the most important thing we can do for our health and the health of our families and children,' says Carrie Denning Jackson, head of innovation and technology at US developer Jamestown and founder of Places as Medicine, an organisation dedicated to creating healthier places and spaces.

Buildings represent 'one of the greatest public health opportunities of this century,' says Harvard University’s Healthy Buildings Program director Joseph Allen. And that opportunity stretches beyond improving our physical health. Many architects believe that a shift towards using more natural, and often less uniform, materials will also lead to longer-lasting, more sustainable spaces where people feel more emotionally connected to the world around them.

For Robert Douge, co-founder of architectural practice Arya Douge, creating low-tox homes and buildings is about more than just reducing exposure to VOCs, the volatile organic compounds found in highly processed building materials. It’s about originality. 'At a time of digital saturation and AI-generated perfection, people want real, natural materials,' he says. 'The market has become saturated with cheap, accessible, ultra-processed fakes. A porcelain tile that has been mass-produced in a factory might look flawless, but it’s not real. A piece of marble straight out of the quarry with a unique imperfection is yours, and yours alone.'

'One of the best tapware suppliers we work with, Studio Ore, specialises in unpatinated finishes. The taps are left to age and patina, so everyone gets a very high-quality tap but, by virtue of how you use it and where it is, six months into owning that tap, it will be different to any other in the world.'

It was this pursuit of the unique that saw homeowners Emma Trachtenberg and Edward Pearse Wheatley turn to reclaimed materials and one-off finishes during the redevelopment of their Victorian terraced house in north-west London. Among their finds were an original butcher’s block, repurposed as a kitchen island, and hand-poured bathroom tiles.

Such a vehement quest for individuality is what Sam Pye, creative director of architectural studio Echlin London, tries to instil in his clients. 'Take kitchen surfaces,' he says. 'People are often warned against marble because it stains. But think of it like a leather wallet. The first mark will bother you the most, but then the stains become part of your story. Do you want your island unit to look box-fresh in ten years? Or do you want those red wine and lemon juice stains to remind you of the life you have lived?'

Not that marble is the only option. At The Dairy, a residential scheme in Notting Hill that has seen the redevelopment of a 19th-century working dairy into eight homes, Echlin used leathered rather than polished Taj Mahal quartzite - a more practical, but still 100% natural, choice of stone.

It’s the replicas, says McNally, the heavy lacquers and high-gloss finishes, that bring chemicals and toxins into a building. That and mass-produced joinery, adds Olga Turner-Baker, managing director and co-founder of Ekkist, a design consultancy specialising in health and well-being in buildings. 'Composite joinery is wood pulp mixed with glue and sealants,' she says. 'Chewed up, wrapped wood products full of chemicals.'

At Pensaer, an architectural practice focused on the process of making, natural materials are used not only for their health benefits but because they age well. 'Rather than introducing unnecessary synthetic layers, we allow materials to weather and develop character over time,' says head of studio Paula Morgan. Internal clay render was used alongside the existing brickwork at Ashbourne Grove, a home in London’s East Dulwich, to naturally regulate humidity and at Casino Avenue in Southwark, the practice used raw materials at touch points, including a salvaged stone countertop.

None of this is easy, of course. 'Natural materials are regularly value engineered out of projects due to higher costs,' says Jamestown’s Denning Jackson. 'And we still don’t know the durability of some of these materials. We used cork in one project that started bubbling, so we had to fix that and then educate the installers on how best to work with the material to avoid it happening again. This is all challenging stuff, but experimentation is at the heart of change and innovation.'

And the use of natural materials is successfully shifting perceptions around what constitutes a healthy building, even in highly regulated spaces. At the New Velindre Cancer Centre in Wales, natural, anti-fungal materials help to improve the health of the building’s end-users. 'The heart of the building is mass timber, and in the patient areas we have made the walls out of hemp and lime render, which are all naturally anti-bacterial,' says Christian Dimbleby, head of sustainability at White Arkitekter. 'They are also breathable, so toxins naturally escape. We came up against standards written for modern materials and had to prove that traditional, natural materials are suitable in healthcare settings. We are pushing boundaries to show that if you use unprocessed materials, you are reducing the risk of unknown chemicals and toxins. We want the general public to know that.'

We have the technology, the machinery and the processes to create flawless replicas at pace. But the tide looks set to finally be turning.

Ibiza’s original spirit has become one of hospitality’s most elastic ideas. At Nômade Temple Ibiza, it stretches across 182 rooms, multiple dining venues, an 810 sq m spa, a recording studio, a bazaar and an M.C. Escher-inspired performance space. This is a hotel with the confidence to call itself a temple – and the programme to fill one. The hotel occupies the former BG Portinatx Beach Club Hotel, a four-star all-inclusive built in the 1970s. Owned by ARD Investment and designed and operated by Mexican-born hospitality company Nômade People, it joins the group’s properties in Tulum, Holbox and Madrid.

Wallpaper* checks in at Nômade Temple Ibiza

What’s on your doorstep?

Portinatx sits at Ibiza’s northern end, in the municipality of Sant Joan de Labritja. The coastal settlement gathers around three beaches – S’Arenal Gros, S’Arenal Petit and Es Port – with pine-covered hills and rocky headlands. The striped Moscarter lighthouse, the tallest in the Balearic Islands, can be reached by following the coast from Es Portixol. Nômade descends towards the water through terraces, paths and native planting, with the pool, beach restaurant and accommodation blocks arranged around the same blue focal point. Guests can head out for coastal hikes, kayaking and snorkelling, although the extensive programme within the hotel – which includes everything from recode breathwork and telescope stargazing to beeswax jewellery workshops – makes leaving a chore.

Who is behind the design?

The architecture and interiors were led by Oneness, Nômade People’s in-house studio, founded by architects Sebastián Sas and Bjarke Ingels. Spanish project-management company Betlinski coordinated the construction, while the wider team included landscape consultant Fernando Martos, lighting specialists Anoche and Alve, furniture manufacturer Cidon and carpenters Stevani & Silva. Guests first enter the property through an enclosed space of intimate proportions, where a reflecting pool introduces the sound of water. The reception then expands beneath a large skylight before the route changes direction and opens suddenly towards the horizon.

‘The main challenge was to transform a building that originally imposed itself on the landscape into an architecture that dialogues with it,’ the architects explain. Most of the guestroom structures were retained, with larger openings, upgraded environmental systems and a closer relationship between interior and exterior. New volumes step down the terrain, allowing one block to overlook another without placing terraces directly in view. Arches and rounded corners reinterpret traditional Ibizan payesa architecture, while deep walls, shaded balconies and semi-covered spaces temper the summer heat and encourage natural ventilation.

The greatest intervention centres on the main building, whose position across the site initially interrupted the relationship with the cove. Oneness turned it into the hotel’s architectural and social nucleus, concentrating the Portinatx Villa, lofts, restaurant and El Templo within and around its retained structure. Repeated arches soften its scale and frame glimpses of planting, sky and water as guests circulate. Throughout, piedra blanca, sabina wood, terracotta, zellige and rustic stone establish the material vocabulary. Furniture was designed for individual spaces, then mixed with vintage pieces collected internationally.

‘Despite its scale, Nômade Temple Ibiza was crafted with the attention and care of a boutique hotel, designing and curating each space individually,’ the architects say. ‘The choice of natural and honest materials, rustic textures, artisanal techniques and local materials seeks to build an identity deeply linked to Ibiza and the spirit of Nômade.’

The room to book

The Portinatx Villa perfectly embodies what the hotel is all about. Set within the main building at the centre of the hotel, it contains three bedrooms, one with a private indoor sauna, alongside an expansive living space, fully equipped kitchen and private pool. It can be taken as an entire villa or divided into individual rooms. The central position provides a broad view across the different levels of the resort and towards the cove. Simple stone surfaces, strong colour, tactile fabrics and individually selected furniture bring together the recurring elements found throughout the accommodation.

Across the remaining categories, rooms range from compact individual spaces to oceanfront suites, double-height DJ Lofts and cliffside villas arranged for groups. Some prioritise seclusion, with private pools, terraces and outdoor bathing; others introduce shared kitchens and living rooms intended for friends, families or creative residencies. Locally sourced materials, artisanal ceramics and handcrafted furniture recur, but their combinations change between rooms, avoiding the uniformity expected of a resort with this many keys.

‘Some rooms are designed for introspection and a deeper connection with the natural environment, while others, such as the DJ Lofts, promote companionship and creativity,’ says Oneness.

Staying for drinks and dinner?

Tavla is the central all-day restaurant, built around seasonal Mediterranean produce, fire cooking and long communal tables. Its restored wooden windows provide the room’s architectural anchor, joined by stone floors laid piece by piece and handcrafted ceramics across the tables. Café Libre handles mornings and the hours between meals, serving speciality coffee from local roastery Meke alongside baked goods and lighter dishes. At the water’s edge, 4fu3gos concentrates on local seafood and open-fire cooking, with clay tiles wrapping the kitchen and traditional Mexican equipal chairs connecting Ibiza to Nômade’s roots in Tulum and Holbox.

Kuu Jū brings Japanese omakase technique into contact with Mediterranean fish and produce. ‘The coloured glass evokes the spirit of the 1970s,’ the architects explain, pointing also to the textured marble counter and oversized straw light suspended above it. Guests can choose between a 13-course journey and a bites menu; the latter includes a soy-fuelled twist on the traditional Spanish gilda and a must-try tuna-belly katsu sando. After dinner, Miami-born Dante’s HiFi draws on Japanese audiophile bars, pairing vinyl with cocktails.

Where to switch off

The Gön House of Healing is Oneness’s most substantial architectural move. Faced with an 810 sq m spa and a coastline already occupied by the inherited hotel, the studio buried the wellness complex within the topography. ‘Due to its large scale and spacious areas, it was decided to bury it and integrate it into the topography, making it practically disappear from the landscape and allowing the cove to remain the true protagonist,’ the architects explain.

The subterranean interiors take their cues from Ibiza’s caves. Travertine floors, textured walls and sharp contrasts between light and shadow lead through hammams, saunas, cold plunges, flotation spaces and the Wataflow Sanctuary. Treatments range from Augustinus Bader facials to the Waterness Journey, in which a practitioner guides the body through fluid movements in warm water. The Emotional Alchemy Ritual combines meditation with bodywork, while the wider programme stretches into Pilates, astrology, hypnotherapy and emotional freedom techniques. A Journey Designer consultation at the beginning of a stay is intended to help guests navigate the options.

The forthcoming El Templo expands the programme beyond traditional wellness. Inspired by M.C. Escher’s shifting geometry, its stairways, changing perspectives and use of light create a flexible setting for yoga, meditation, performances and celebrations.

The verdict

Whether Ibiza’s ‘original essence’ can be recovered is beside the point. Nômade has created a version of the island with its own spatial logic, soundtrack and daily rituals. Staying here means entering the hotel’s spiritual worldview. Its stated aim is reconnection – with oneself, the landscape, the island and other people. A shaman-in-residence is available to perform energy cleansings, while Journey Designers help guests assemble a personal route through the rituals, treatments and cultural events. With 182 rooms and an extensive programme, there is enough variety for each day to take a different shape; whether that means wellness in the morning, dancing after dark or both is entirely up to the guest.

Nômade Temple Ibiza is located at Carrer Camí de sa Torre, 07810 Sant Joan de Labritja, Illes Balears, Spain.

Othmane Bengebara, an emerging architect and his studio in Morocco, joins the Wallpaper* Architects Directory 2026, our annual round-up of exciting emerging architecture studios.

Who: Othmane Bengebara Studio

Othmane Bengebara Studio is a multidisciplinary architecture and design practice founded in 2020 by French-Moroccan professor and architect Othmane Bengebara. Bengebara studied at the École Spéciale d'Architecture in Paris and the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro. He has contributed to prestigious projects from royal residences to global Louis Vuitton flagship stores, under the direction of Peter Marino.

Othmane Bengebara Studio works across residential, cultural, hospitality and exhibition projects and moves fluidly between architecture, interiors and scenography. Whether designing a private residence, an exhibition or an infrastructural facility, the studio seeks to create spaces that are both emotionally resonant and inspired by everyday details. ‘I am motivated by the dialogue between art and architecture and by the discovery of new disciplines within each project,’ says Bengebara. ‘Architecture, for me, is a continuous search for beauty — a transversal exploration that moves across disciplines, cultures, and scales.’

Othmane Bengebara Studio has completed residential, cultural and exhibition projects across Morocco and internationally, including the scenography for the Uzbekistan Pavilion presented at the 2024 Venice Biennale. The Casablanca/Paris- based studio is currently planning a private aviation facility in Morocco for the 2030 FIFA World Cup and continues to expand its international practice.

What: House Ddaar

Completed between 2023 and 2024 in Essaouira, Morocco, House Ddaar is a minimalist villa that reflects the Studio's ability to evoke emotion through architecture. Set within a 25-acre agricultural site overlooking the surrounding countryside, the 300 sq m residence was conceived as both a private retreat and a place for gatherings. It allows for moments of introspection while remaining welcoming to guests.

The house is made up of sections of interconnected volumes, a sequence of living spaces, gallery-like rooms, bedrooms, a kitchen, dining area and bar – each one has a distinct atmosphere and maintains a close relationship with the external landscape. A natural, restrained palette allows the architecture to sit quietly within the setting. It uses passive ventilation, solar energy and water management systems, which contribute to a sustainable approach. Local artisans add interest throughout the project in the crafted doors, furniture and objects displayed in the property.

Why: Architects Directory 2026

When the Wallpaper* Architects’ Directory was conceived in 2000, it was built as our bespoke international index of emerging architectural talent. Now in its 25th edition, our annual listing of promising practices from across the globe (now comprising over 500 alumni) champions the best and most promising young studios - a snapshot of talent showcasing inspiring work from all corners of the Earth with an emphasis on the residential realm.

This year’s anniversary survey includes 30 young studios (one for each of the 30 years of Wallpaper*), from Australia, Bahrain, Benin, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Denmark, Ecuador, Ghana, Greece, France, Ivory Coast, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Kuwait, India, Morocco, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, the UK, the USA, and Vietnam. Welcome to the promise, ideas and exciting architecture of the Wallpaper* Architects’ Directory 2026.

OthmaneBengebara.com

Space starved lovers of intensive home workouts should consider the new OMNI X1 Pro from Innodigym, a self-described ‘smart gym machine’ that aims to put a raft of different workouts and fitness options into a relatively compact all-in-one package.

The new device has been shaped to replace a number of different workouts with a single piece of equipment, including free weights, benches, racks and cable machines. Up to 120kg of resistance is offered through digital control, with a 360-degree cable system running around a three-rail structure inside the foldable unit. When unfolded for use, the X1 Pro takes up just 10.4 square feet of space. When stored it’s smaller still, taking up just 1.3 square feet.

Innodigym are hoping the unit earns its smarts through the flexibility and variety of the workout modes, which are pitched at keen beginners and regular gym goers alike. The product, which was launched and funded via Kickstarter, goes beyond straightforward cardio workouts to imitate the feel and feedback of commercial equipment. The cable system allows the user to make natural movements regardless of whether they’re lunging, doing bench presses, squats, or pulldowns.

The beauty of the X1 Pro is that all this can happen in the same place on the same piece of kit. This functionality is assisted by an AI coach system that incorporates hundreds of guided exercises across the four training modes, Standard, Eccentric, Spring and Isokinetic. The large touch screen provides guidance and chronicles reps and weights.

Safety has also been taken into consideration, with a special quick release button on the smart handles taking the role of a spotter during heavy lifts, while the AI-driven guided workouts are also programmed to release resistance if a problem is detected.

The X1 Pro is also available with an optional Fitness Bench and Pull-up Assist System to create a complete home workout experience.

Innodigym OMNI X1 Pro, £2,449 / $3,299, Innodigym.com

‘Timeless luxury always begins with proportion, quality and craftsmanship,’ says Head of Interior Design at Mercedes-Benz, Hartmut Sinkwitz. Since its debut in 2019, the Mercedes-Maybach GLS has shown how these principles can be applied to SUVs. Its latest iteration refines this formula, combining meticulous craftsmanship with technical precision in a way that is unmistakably Maybach.

'The guiding idea behind the new Mercedes-Maybach GLS was to further elevate its character as a private sanctuary while strengthening its visual presence’, states Head of Exterior Design at Mercedes-Benz, Robert Lesnik. This ambition can be seen through the vehicle’s commanding silhouette, 23-inch forged wheels and newly designed headlights.

This sense of presence continues through the radiator grille, which is smartly framed by a luminous outline and complemented by carefully illuminated Maybach lettering. 'Our iconic radiator grille is inspired by our brand’s history and the desire to create an even stronger sense of distinction,' says Lesnik. Above it sits the iconic Mercedes-Benz logo, reinforcing the unmistakable German identity.

That same level of precision and care carries through to the arrival experience. As you open the doors of the new Mercedes-Maybach GLS, running boards deploy in under a second. This creates an immediate sense of occasion whenever you enter the vehicle. At night, a discreet LED strip highlights these elements, as the Maybach emblem is cleverly projected onto the ground.

‘Inside, every detail is designed around serenity and wellbeing’ explains Sinkwitz. In the cabin, the refined trim and ambient lighting create a tranquil environment. ‘Rather than creating visual spectacle, we use lighting to reinforce a calm and sophisticated atmosphere,’ states Sinkwitz.

The elegant MBUX Superscreen brings three displays together beneath a glass surface, extending digital information across the front row. ‘Our philosophy is that technology should enhance luxury, not dominate it,’ Sinktwitz says, ‘We also used Maybach-specific graphics to ensure that the digital experience feels elegant, calm and typically Maybach.'

An updated steering wheel, haptic controls and redesigned air vents add further polish to the interior. Customer feedback prompted the return of rocker switches and a precision volume roller. ‘The result is a more mature user interface that combines familiarity, precision and contemporary functionality in equal measure’, notes Sinkwitz.

The V8-powered vehicle boasts enhanced acoustic insulation, creating a quieter cabin than in previous models. Executive seats feature an advanced massage function that now extends to the calves, while the front seats are equipped with a newly developed vibration massage system integrated directly into the seat cushions. Together, these features create a calmer and more comfortable experience.

‘We took what customers already valued about the Maybach GLS and amplified it in a more contemporary and technologically advanced way,’ the designer explains. The Mercedes-Benz flagship model also offers extensive scope for personalisation through the MANUFAKTUR programme. New paint colours are complemented by exclusive leather interior packages, bespoke finishes and a range of meticulously crafted details, allowing each vehicle to take on a more individual character.

The new Mercedes-Maybach GLS is a luxury SUV defined by considered proportions, exquisite materials, and seamlessly integrated technology. Every element has been skilfully crafted to create an environment that feels effortlessly contemporary. An evolution of previous models, this new Maybach looks to the future without losing sight of what made it timeless.

Mercedes-Maybach GLS, from £179,995, Mercedes-Benz.co.uk, @MercedesMaybach

The American sunglasses brand Jacques Marie Mage is often deemed the ‘Rolls-Royce of eyewear’ for both its fastidious production – each pair is hand-made and polished in Japan or Italy, and constructed from the highest quality cellulose acetate – and relative scarcity, with styles often running in editions of less than 500 (like Rolls-Royce, they come with the price tag to match).

It is why, in lieu of the usual brand-on-brand collaborations, Jacques Marie Mage has instead largely united with notable cultural figures, from Patti Smith and Marianne Faithfull, to the acclaimed fashion designer Haider Ackermann. Or, indeed, their estates: such is the case with a longstanding collaboration with the late film director Stanley Kubrick, whose distinctive visual eye has inspired various Jacques Marie Mage styles since 2022.

Jacques Marie Mage is reissuing its Stanley Kubrick-inspired frames

These have included futuristic face-shielding frames reminiscent of those which appeared in Kubrick’s 1968 sci-fi classic 2001: A Space Odyssey, or those inspired by the 1980 horror The Shining, which were released earlier this year. The two-piece collection comprised the ‘Torrance’ sunglasses, a 70s-inspired rectangular silhouette, and the ‘Twins’ sunglasses, a more vivid butterfly shape which draws on the symbolism of ‘cinema’s most sinister siblings’. Both collections praised Kubrick’s ‘peculiar fusion of modernism and classicism, violence and absurdity,’ calling him ‘an auteur for the ages’.

This month, Jacques Marie Mage is revisiting the collaboration once again, reissuing two frames from 2022 that were inspired not by Kubrick’s movies but by the man himself. Available in new colourways, the two styles draw on two seminal decades in the director’s career: the 1940s and the 1980s. During the former, Kubrick began working in New York as a magazine photographer, before being drawn into the city’s arthouse cinema scene; during the latter, he released The Shining and Full Metal Jacket (1987).

As such, the ‘1948’ has a bookish, mid-century charm, directly referencing the eyewear worn by Kubrick while photographing figures like boxer Walter Cartier and entertainer Frank Sinatra for Look magazine in the late 1940s (he began at the publication aged 17 as a staff photographer). With rounded lenses and thick-rimmed frames, they feature sterling silver hardware and are crafted from 10mm curated acetate. Jacques Marie Mage describes them as ‘charming and cerebral’. They come in four colours: classic black, polished clear acetate, bottle green and red havana tortoishell.

The ‘1980’, meanwhile, is a sleeker aviator style, inspired by the sunglasses Kubrick wore while filming The Shining and Full Metal Jacket. Featuring metal titanium rims and bridge, they have a lightweight hand-feel and also come in four colourways: silver with black lenses, gold with blue lenses, champagne gold with brown lenses, and light gold with ‘darjeeling’ lenses. Available in limited-edition numbers, they are finished with ‘1980’ engraved on the arm.

‘[They] serve as a celebration of the life and creative output of one of the most brilliant, influential, and original filmmakers in cinematic history,’ say Jacques Marie Mage of the two styles. ‘Over the course of his career, [he] displayed a dynamic dedication to research and craft that shaped his films into timeless explorations of humour, hubris, horror, and hope. This unique collection of eyewear is an homage to the legacy of cinema’s obsessive genius, a sartorial tribute to the unflinching vision and aesthetic ingenuity that solidified him as an auteur for the ages.’

jacquesmariemage.com

Celebrity campaigns are a dime a dozen, but when Chanel Beauty takes on a new face it generates attention. That’s because the house’s reach and resonance are such that its campaigns often become familiar touchstones of their time. Case in point, chances are if you were around in the early 2000s, you remember the Baz Luhrmann-directed Chanel No 5 ad starring Nicole Kidman, or Keira Knightley running around Paris for Coco Mademoiselle.

Now, the brand has unveiled a fresh era for the house with a new fragrance Coco Mademoiselle: Crush Absolu, and a campaign film to match, starring singer Gracie Abrams and directed by Joe Wright, best known for directing Pride & Prejudice, Atonement and Anna Karenina.

Gracie Abrams stars in Chanel’s latest fragrance campaign

The film depicts Abrams running away from the paparazzi in Paris, only to find herself in a café where she quickly galvanises a crowd of everyday Parisians to join her in an uproarious dance routine (and plays a lot of pinball), all with the kind of exuberant glamour you expect, and want, from a perfume campaign.

The film’s euphoric, nighttime atmosphere echoes the aura of the fragrance itself, which opens with a bright grapefruit and lychee accord, before settling into richer notes of rose, jasmine and a particularly potent note of patchouli. As Chanel’s in-house perfumer, Olivier Polge, says, ‘it’s a scent that is full of character. Patchouli is elevated by ambery notes, accentuating the fragrance’s sensual, powerful nature.’

For Abrams, who has already achieved worldwide fame, being a part of the Chanel Beauty family is a landmark moment. ‘It’s unreal to be the new face of Coco Mademoiselle,’ she says. ‘I feel an immense sense of pride. I love that Coco is someone who leaves a mark everywhere she goes. Sometimes, I wish I could be more like her.’

chanel.com

English fashion accessories designer Anya Hindmarch is the sort of traveller who could spend an entire 14-hour flight watching the aircraft inch across the in-flight map. She touches the outside of every plane for luck before boarding, bows three times to a new moon wherever she finds herself, and returns home with everything from orange blossom oil and kohl to pieces that eventually become part of her summer wardrobe. Travel, for Hindmarch, is another way of learning – architecture, history, food and culture experienced first-hand.

That curiosity sits alongside an instinct that has shaped her work since she founded her eponymous London business in 1987: the urge to give everything its place. The origin of one of her most enduring ideas is fittingly travel-related. After repeatedly unloading an assortment of currencies at airport security, she devised the Loose Pocket, a dedicated pouch for all the paraphernalia that otherwise drifts around a bag. The same logic has since run through her Labelled collection and countless purpose-built accessories, turning the contents of a handbag into something of a filing system.

Now, her travel fixation has its own destination. Following the debut of the Air Anya pop-up last year, Anya Travel has now arrived as a permanent collection and standalone store at The Village on Pont Street in London, gathering what Hindmarch calls ‘all of the travel organisational obsessive ideas I have had over the years’ into one place. Recycled-nylon suitcases and weekend bags sit alongside pouches, passport covers, eye masks, luggage tags and other in-flight essentials, while the store borrows its visual language from stations and airports, with thick waiting-room carpet, moulded plastic seating, rounded windows and a travel clock. A Concorde candle and tins of travel sweets add Hindmarch’s characteristic humour.

‘I spend much of my life between places, travelling in all its forms. It can be exhausting, but there’s something about being in transit. It’s the only time I allow myself to waste time and simply follow my heart,’ she tells Wallpaper*.

For the latest edition of In Transit, our interview series exploring the travel habits and philosophies of creative minds, Hindmarch shares the destinations, objects and rituals that have stayed with her – from her earliest memories of Marrakech to the beach in the Philippines where her husband proposed, and why she wants to sleep in Pompeii.

How Anya Hindmarch travels

What’s your earliest travel memory?

‘Marrakech, aged five. I remember people stroking my blond hair, oranges sold from baskets with their leaves still attached, and the water sellers.’

What role does travel play in your life now, personally and through work?

‘I love it. I travel far and wide for both work and pleasure, and nothing excites me like discovering somewhere new. I could happily watch the flight map for an entire 14-hour journey.’

What attracts you to a destination?

‘I love to learn, and nothing beats experiencing a place first-hand. I’m drawn to architecture, history, food and culture – anything that introduces me to something new.’

Do you pack for who you are or who you think you’ll become on that trip?

‘A bit of both. I also love buying things while I’m away. My summer wardrobe has become a collection of pieces gathered on my travels, each with its own memory and story.’

What’s the most unnecessary thing you bring ‘just in case’ – and the most essential?

‘Too many shoes. My diary is the essential – I write in it every day.’

What’s one garment, accessory or beauty tip you always rely on when travelling?

‘My longyis from Myanmar, which double as skirts, towels and cover-ups. I mostly wear them as skirts, with a shirt tucked in.

Do you have a travel habit – something you do every time, wherever you are, even if it’s irrational?

‘I always touch the outside of the plane for luck as I board. I also bow three times to a new moon and make a wish, wherever I am in the world.’

Who’s the most interesting person you’ve met while travelling?

‘Probably our guide in the Galápagos Islands.’

What’s the best thing you’ve ever brought back from a trip?

‘It’s impossible to choose: sand from the beach where my husband proposed in the Philippines; kohl that a local girl in Petra applied to the whole family so our eyes would look good in photographs – she was right; or orange blossom oil from Tangier. Buy it in bulk.’

What’s a place that changed the way you think, or taught you something lasting?

‘Always Japan – for its approach to manners, quality and discipline.’

Do you remember places more by how they looked or how they felt?

‘Both – and by how they smelled. It’s why nothing replaces actually being there.’

Do you tend to capture moments when you travel or let them stay unrecorded?

‘I take zillions of photographs, then savour them when I get home.’

Which place in the world feels most like you?

‘Morocco – the call to prayer, deafening birdsong, cold landscapes and hot sun. But I want to sleep in Pompeii.’

According to Anya...

Journey or destination? ‘Both.’

Window or aisle? ‘Window.’

Early or late flight? ‘Day flight, all the way.’

Fold or roll? ‘Fold.’

Plan everything or arrive and figure it out? ‘Plan beforehand, obviously.’

Go-to travel snack? ‘Wine gums and electrolytes.’

Who’s always on your playlist? ‘Paolo Conte.’

Ideal long-haul seatmate? ‘My husband or my work wife Kate.’

anyahindmarch.com

Balancing boldness with restraint, the new ‘Dori’ collection by Doshi Levien for Hay reflects the dual approach of its creators, Nipa Doshi and Jonathan Levien. The pair, who founded their studio in London in 2000, is known for combining cultural richness with technical innovation, with Doshi’s delicate visual sensibility a perfect foil for Levien’s industrial precision.

Offering a subtle combination of texture and colour, the ‘Dori’ textile range is named after the Hindi word for ‘thread’ and includes a quilted bedspread, cushion and organic cotton cushion cover. With their contrast stitching in a grid pattern and reversible colour fields, they are a perfect match to Doshi Levien’s 2021 ‘Quilton’ sofa, a ‘quilted landscape system’ that was their debut design for Hay, as well as their ‘Rabari’ rug collection for Nanimarquina.

For Doshi, who grew up in Mumbai, it’s an opportunity to bring ‘a different textile culture into the Hay universe, rooted in Indian traditions of cotton, embroidery and everyday use.’ The inspiration for the collection actually came from a textile sample whose intricate reverse was noticed by Mette Hay, Hay’s co-founder and creative director of accessories, during a visit to Doshi Levien’s London studio.

‘It was a simple two-tone check pattern on a cotton fabric, in a kantha or kabira stitch, a running, hand-embroidered technique traditionally used for quilting fabrics in different parts of India including Gujarat, West Bengal and Rajasthan,’ says Doshi of the eye-catching sample fabric, which was actually made by her aunt’s workshop in Ahmedabad.

‘Set in the garden of a modernist house and employing over 60 master craftspeople, my aunt’s workshop also made the “Charpoy” daybed collection we designed for Moroso in 2008,’ she says. ‘I studied at the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad and spent considerable time in this incredible textile workshop that also made clothes for Issey Miyake and Hermès. It was in Ahmedabad that I developed a deep love for Indian textiles and techniques; and modern Indian architecture by B V Doshi, Le Corbusier and Louis Kahn.’

While traditional kantha embroidery is created by hand, the ‘Dori’ collection is made using industrial machine embroidery to make it more accessible. The bright contrast stitching in the shape of a grid adds texture but is also practical. ‘It’s not only decorative,’ says Doshi, ‘but also acts as a subtle guide, showing how to fold, place, and compose the bed. Even within industrial production, the piece carries a sense of craftsmanship – every detail reflects care, intelligence, and time.’

As you’d expect from a studio whose ‘Kinari’ collection for Galerie Kreo was named ‘Best Colour Study’ in the Wallpaper* Design Awards 2024, the collection’s colour palette is key to its appeal. Doshi Levien has its own colour lab with around 300-400 different hues, and yet still mixes additional colours for projects such as ‘Dori’, whose apparent simplicity is actually the result of two years of research.

The pieces are available in three reversible two-tone colourways – midnight blue, maroon, and green – inspired by a wide-ranging colour research spanning everything from miniature paintings from Jodhpur and glazed ceramic and lacquer samples, to Picasso’s 1932 La Lecture (Reading) and Malevich’s 1915 Suprematism; Self Portrait in Two Dimensions.

‘The idea was to allow people to change the identity of the piece simply by turning it over,’ says Doshi of the reversible design. ‘Each colourway is finely embroidered in two contrasting, bright threads. This gave us endless possibilities for colour explorations, not only for fabrics but also embroidery threads.’ The designers made more than 50 combinations to send as options to Hay.

‘We chose fabric colours that were dark saturated colours on one side with light colours on the reverse; the thread colours are deliberately bright and vibrant so they are fine but visible on both dark and light side,’ she says. ‘Quite a challenge to have four colours working together in each colour way!

‘Dori’ is all about pared-back and carefully thought-through details, such as the small label that carries an embroidered signature, adding a personal touch to the tactile pieces. Bringing warmth, colour, and presence to the room, the new collection is also a celebration of the ‘very important ritual of making a beautiful bed, and enjoying the process of doing something simple, well’.

Set on steep terrain and lifted high above the ground, a treetop home is a sensitive response to its client’s connection to the area. Located in Guarujá, São Paulo, a coastal city and island on the Atlantic coast, the residence, titled ES House, feels like a contemporary interpretation of a treehouse - and it is a project designed by Brazilian studio Jacobsen Studio.

Discover a treetop home in Upstate São Paulo

‘We wanted the house to emerge from the landscape, following the natural slope and preserving as much of the existing forest as possible,’ explains the studio's partner Paulo Jacobsen. ‘Every design decision, from the split-level organisation to the suspended structural system, was guided by the ambition to create a home that feels inseparable from its surroundings and frames the sea and the horizon as constant companions.’

The design aimed to make the resident feel immersed in the landscape. To begin, the architects created a layout which unfolded as visitors entered. This was achieved by somewhat camouflaging the residence by preserving the surrounding vegetation, while also planting new trees – which also reinforces the connection between architecture and landscape.

Visitors can access the building via street level. However, it is the roof that welcomes people, who will see a garden with a fire pit and wooden deck on it as they arrive. Down the first flight of stairs and past the reflecting pool and another garden, it opens up to a double-height mezzanine that houses the living space.

For Jacobsen, this is the most remarkable moment: ‘When you stand on the mezzanine of the main social level, where the checkered Glulam roof and double-height glass panels open completely toward the horizon and the sea, it is such an interesting spatial experience. It feels as if the ocean is a continuation of the house.’

The bedrooms are found on the lower floor, which is the same level as the treetops, while further down is a deck area for contemplation and meditation. Merging the house with the sloped terrain wasn’t an easy task, and developing a structural solution that would respond to the site's steep terrain while minimising its environmental impact was at the forefront of the architects’ plan. The studio settled on a dendriform structure.

‘This allows the main volume to be supported at only two points, reducing contact with the ground, preserving existing vegetation, and maintaining uninterrupted views of the sea,’ explains Jacobsen. ‘Achieving this balance between complex engineering, environmental sensitivity, and spatial quality required close collaboration throughout the design process.’

ES House is a treetop home designed to be discovered, where elements unfold as you journey through it. Says the architect: ‘The intention is to create a sense of calm and refuge, with the architecture revealing itself slowly and encouraging people to connect with the landscape. By the time they reach the main living spaces, the openness toward the sea, the warmth of the natural materials, and the surrounding forest should bring out both a feeling of serenity and a sense of belonging to the place.’

jacobsenstudio.com

Choices, choices. What if you don’t want to give up the convenience of smartphone but still want to do things a little differently? We flagged the existence of the Fairphone 6 in an earlier round-up of simple smartphones, but now we’ve had a chance to trial the uprated new Fairphone (Gen. 6+) to see if it lives up to its promises.

First impressions of the FP6+ are very favourable. The processor has been upgraded to the Snapdragon 7s Gen 4 (as found in Nothing Phone (4a) and various models from OnePlus, Motorola and Xiaomi), while onboard memory is now a competitive 12GB.

The camera stays the same as the original 6 (a 50MP main camera with a Sony lens, a 32MP Samsung front camera and a 12MP ultra-wide camera), while the exterior is distinguished by a new Cobalt Blue finish, with matching accessories.

For most casual users, the most important part of a smartphone is the camera, and the FP6+ is accomplished but not exceptional. Comparing like-for-like images with a more dedicated camera-centric phone (the Leica Leitzphone powered by Xiaomi) and images are softer with slightly less definition and flatter colour – it’s a combination of lens quality and post-processing that gives the Xiaomi the edge, as it should given its price premium.

In the hand, the Fairphone feels more plasticky than the sleek metal devices we’ve become accustomed to. To its credit, Fairphone leans into this, partly because over 50% of the total weight of the phone are made from fair and recycled materials.

Organisations like the Fair Cobalt Alliance, co-founded by Fairphone, are striving to improve conditions in cobalt mines in the DRC, the kind of small-scale, low-wage and high-intensity working environment that has become essential to smartphone manufacturing yet is all but invisible to consumers.

If you’re keen to support such initiatives, you’re also probably more disposed to digging into devices when they start to go wrong. The FP6+ contains 12 different parts that can be repaired with nothing more than a screwdriver. That includes the battery, as well as a range of accessories, while Fairphone will also supply a list of swappable spare parts, from camera modules to the speaker and the screen (which comes in at €89.95).

As well as all this, the phone has support for a regular SIM and an eEIM, microSD card support and a new dedicated Fairphone Gallery app if you want to keep your images away from the big tech brands.

The bottom line is that this is a common or garden mid-range Android smartphone, a wise buy at a time when mid-range is king. As previously noted, the speed of chips and quality of screens, cameras and the overall Android experience has reached a point where most mid-range devices do all you could conceivably require of a phone.

The recent pivot towards folding flagships is one way of keeping phones in the premium space, as is the largely unnecessary addition of intensive AI-driven processing, interrogation and photography. Fairphone is about neither of these things, although it's more than capable of running Google's Gemini.

But how long should a smartphone last? Google promises seven years of OS updates for its Pixel range, a figure also matched by Samsung. Apple’s iPhone can max out at eight years of support. All these figures overlook the fact that battery life could well be severely impacted before these targets are reached, making the device economically unrepairable before its time.

Fairphone reckons the new phone should easily last through to 2033 and beyond, thanks to its repairability and promised software support. As a result, there is a great deal to admire in the Fairphone (Gen. 6+), as a small company punches above its weight while also foregrounding best practice in an industry not best known for its sustainable and ethical approach. The new model also marks the brand’s debut in the USA – a timely arrival, given the gathering support for the Right-to-Repair movement.

Later this year, the company will bring these qualities to its second set of earbuds, Fairbuds 2, continuing its mission of keeping pace with change without compromising its values.

Fairphone (Gen. 6+), £569 / $649, Fairphone.com, Amazon.co.uk

When Donald Judd purchased an abandoned military base outside Marfa, Texas in the late 1970s, the artist saw beyond the site’s scarred landscape and trash-strewn buildings; he saw a place where art, architecture and the land could exist in perfect balance.

Judd identified a pair of long sheds, originally used to house trucks and artillery, to transform into twin galleries that would house an ambitious site-specific work, 100 untitled works in mill aluminum, a meditative installation of gleaming aluminum boxes. Judd encountered a problem, though: the buildings leaked. When standard patches didn’t work, Judd, who also designed furniture and buildings, rectified the issue by capping the historic structures with a secondary arched roof made from corrugated steel.

Forty years on, Judd’s Chinati Foundation is one of the most important sites for 20th-century art in the US, a fact that helped transform the sleepy desert town into a global art mecca. But the artillery shed roofs still leaked.

‘In a massive Texas rainstorm, we will sometimes put out 100 buckets inside of the building,’ says Stephen Martin, the foundation’s director of preservation and planning.

What’s more, sand and dust from the surrounding Chihuahua desert would blow into the building through crevices; and temperatures inside could soar to 115 degrees Fahrenheit, sweltering heat that cooked staff, guests – and even the artworks (conservators discovered that the extreme temperature variances caused the aluminum sculptures to move off of their precise grid formation).

‘I don't want to use the word “crisis,” but when there are large weather events, we're very concerned,’ Martin adds.

Circumstances are about to change for the artillery sheds. Following a capital campaign, the Chinati Foundation has announced that it will be delicately restoring the two buildings to suit Judd’s artistic vision while preserving them for the future.

‘The approach has been first to really understand what are the real issues and concerns with the building,’ explains Caitlin Murray, the foundation’s executive director, ‘but [also] really understanding how we preserve the experience of this work according to Judd's intentions.’

Chinati has enlisted a team of experts to a team, including architect Troy Schaum, whose practice restored another foundation site, The John Chamberlin Building, four years ago.

‘There are two inhabitants that we're designing this space for,’ Schaum notes: the artworks and visitors, 20,000 of which visit the site every year. He underscores the delicacy of the gleaming boxes that make up 100 untitled works in mill aluminum: ‘The aluminum is a 3003 aluminum alloy that was specially-made for this artwork, and it has no finish on it, so it's very delicate and it's irreplaceable in its current state if it gets damaged,’ Schaum says.

His firm’s architectural approach will be similarly delicate: an invisible film will be added to some 10,000 sq ft of windows to block out UVA and UVB rays; the design team will positively pressurise the building to help circulate air and prevent dust and grit from entering the building envelope; and the team, with the expertise of engineering firm TYLin, will be incorporating a new roof structure to address the leaks, improve drainage and even harvest rainwater.

‘It’s like a heist movie or something – we like sneak in, make changes and we leave,’ Schaum says. ‘You're not going to find our fingerprints.’

Chinati is also using the opportunity to renew the land itself, whose ecosystems had been damaged after years of military use. Landscape experts Maggie Tsang and Jim Martinez will be analysing the site to restore the soil, bring back native plant species, redirect rainwater and thwart grassfires. The design team will also work to improve accessibility to the site by creating wider pathways and incorporating ramps.

The artworks will also receive TLC. For the first time, the installation will be relocated to make way for analysis and conservation helmed by Alfred Lippincott, who originally fabricated the works in the 1980s; the Getty Conservation Institute; and Bogna Skwara, Chinati’s head of conservation.

Preservation works will begin later this year; the team expects the project will take between two and three years to complete. But it will be worth the wait: ‘This is one of the most significant preservation projects for Chinati in a generation,’ says Murray. ‘It's an incredible honour to get to work on this work of art in a really holistic way.’

Paul Smith opened his first standalone store in 1970, in a tiny, windowless location in Byard Lane, a pokey Nottingham alleyway. In the years prior, he had cut his teeth at Birdcage, a tailor’s workshop-turned-independent boutique in the city. Its founder, Janet Campbell, entrusted the Beeston-born twentysomething with heading up its menswear department, and here Smith dressed the Midlands’ Mod scene in its signature razor-sharp, bespoke suiting, inspiring him to launch his own line of men’s shirts: Paul Smith Vêtements Pour Homme.

Six years after moving into Byard Lane, Smith set his sights on Paris, presenting his debut menswear collection in a friend’s apartment on Rue de Vaugirard. From then on, it wasn’t long before the world came to know the singular visual language of Paul Smith: a lexicon of heritage fabrics, British witticism, impeccable craftsmanship and riotous colour. International acclaim has never stopped Smith, who celebrated his 80th birthday in July this year, from remembering his Nottinghamshire roots.

‘Nottingham has shaped everything, not just design but my life,’ he says. ‘Growing up in that environment taught me to value quality, hard work and making things properly. At the same time, it’s a city full of unexpected contrasts, and I’ve always loved mixing those ideas – traditional tailoring with something unexpected.’

Though the Byard Lane shop closed in 2017, Paul Smith’s Nottingham flagship, which opened in 2005 just a stone’s throw away inside the Grade II-listed Willoughby House, still stands as one of the city’s landmarks. Since marking the brand’s 50th anniversary in 2020, Paul Smith’s Foundation has been systematically cataloguing its history within a dedicated archive at the company’s HQ, housing more than 5,000 garments and objects from Smith’s extensive personal collection. (Even the bicycle Smith crashed at the age of 17 sits within this ‘Aladdin’s cave’, as the brand describes it.)

Among its most recognisable pieces is a shirt from the 1980s, printed with plates of marinara-soaked spaghetti, inspired by a surreal wax model acquired by Smith during a trip to Japan. This sits alongside one of the earliest garments produced under the Paul Smith name: a bespoke white wedding suit made for a client in 1970. Further custom-made ensembles include those worn by the likes of David Bowie.

‘There are many pieces in the archive that mean a great deal to me, but not always because they are the most well-known,’ adds Smith. ‘That said, recently a lot of people have been talking about my S/S 1999 womenswear collection. It’s lovely to see people revisiting it with a new appreciation and finding inspiration in it all over again.’

‘Looking back to look forward’ is a theme that Smith has explored in his most recent work. For the past three menswear seasons, shows have been staged in Milan rather than Paris. The label’s A/W 2026 offering saw Smith work closely with the newly appointed head of menswear Sam Cotton, examining the Nottingham archive from a new perspective, with reworked, oversized 1990s silhouettes reimagined across outerwear and relaxed tailoring. ‘The joy of having this repository is that my own design team visit regularly and come back with great enthusiasm for things they found there,’ said Smith at the time.

The ever-expanding archive has also been developed with the future in mind. Paul Smith’s Foundation offers a Fashion Residency programme supporting emerging designers with access to the archive, mentors and a free studio space in London. Meanwhile, its biannual Archive Residency invites visual artists to explore the space and its contents before producing a project in response. ‘I am very proud of lots,’ says Smith, reflecting on his career. ‘But mentoring and supporting young creatives has always been paramount.’ Above all, he believes, ‘the archive tells the story of staying curious.’

A version of this article appears in the September 2026 Style Issue of Wallpaper*, available now in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today.

Model: Lottie Morris and Thomas Bunce at Viva London. Casting: Jon Johnson. Hair: Kachi Katsuya using Bumble and Bumble Make-up: Lydia Ward-Smith using Dior Forever Foundation and Dior Capture Le Sérum. Photography assistant: Emmet Banahan. Fashion assistant: Louis Boyagis. Production: Amelia Studios. Retouching: André Jacques.

Studio Mehta, an emerging practice from Kenya, joins the Wallpaper* Architects Directory 2026, our annual round-up of exciting emerging architecture studios.

Who: Studio Mehta

Following studies in San Diego and London, and work experience in the United Kingdom, Spain and Germany, architect Amar Mehta founded his namesake studio in his hometown of Nairobi in 2019. Working on everyday projects but always aiming for extraordinary results, the emerging studio takes inspiration from every project’s layers of ‘place, culture and climate,’ and of course ‘the individual who will ultimately inhabit the space,’ he adds.

'Our motivation comes from a simple belief – that architecture should respond honestly to place, people, and culture. We are driven by the idea of creating work that feels rooted in Kenya while pushing contemporary design forward through thoughtful detail, local materials, and collaborative thinking.'

'What keeps us going is the process itself: working closely with clients, artisans, and consultants to shape spaces that are not only beautiful, but deeply lived-in and meaningful. As a studio, we’re motivated by curiosity, by challenging conventional ways of building, and by the pursuit of architecture that balances ambition with responsibility – spaces that feel timeless, human, and quietly impactful.’

His residential work is informed by climate, culture, craft, and the realities of building in Kenya – while the architect strives to balance global influences with a hyper-local vocabulary of materials and features, and a site-specific approach that will eventually lead him to confidently build his own language.

What: Ua House

Ua House, Mehta’s own home, is set among rich foliage in the country’s precious Kilifi coastline. The architect was conscious of his construction’s carbon footprint, so he made a decision to mitigate as much of it as he could – using, for example, salvaged limestone blocks from pool excavations from nearby sites, abandoned quarry dust as the predominant binding agent, and more recycled materials sourced from the area.

The result is a 120 sqm home that blends traditional Omani and Swahili design heritage. All set in a single level, it involves a luxurious relationship with the outdoors through the presence of numerous outdoor areas – including courtyards of various sizes (the entrance sequence features a key one) and a pool terrace. His goal was to showcase through this design what can be achieved by clever decisions and a hyperlocal approach. It’s all about ‘accessible sustainability,’ he says.

Why: Architects Directory 2026

When the Wallpaper* Architects’ Directory was conceived in 2000, it was built as our bespoke international index of emerging architectural talent. Now in its 25th edition, our annual listing of promising practices from across the globe (now comprising over 500 alumni) champions the best and most promising young studios - a snapshot of talent showcasing inspiring work from all corners of the Earth with an emphasis on the residential realm.

This year’s anniversary survey includes 30 young studios (one for each of the 30 years of Wallpaper*), from Australia, Bahrain, Benin, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Denmark, Ecuador, Ghana, Greece, France, Ivory Coast, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Kuwait, India, Morocco, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, the UK, the USA, and Vietnam. Welcome to the promise, ideas and exciting architecture of the Wallpaper* Architects’ Directory 2026.

studiomehta.com

If you know the Italian furniture brand Kartell, then you likely know Anna Castelli Ferrieri (1918–2006). The designer co-founded the company with her husband, Giulio Castelli, and created some of its most iconic pieces. Dubbed ‘the Queen of Plastic’, Ferrieri was responsible for popularising the material as the ultimate future-facing option for mass-produced furniture in the second half of the 20th century.

Castelli won Italy’s leading design prize, the Compasso d’Oro, three times, enjoyed a successful career as an architect, and in her later years taught at prestigious design schools. Her ‘Componibili’ storage system or Kartell continues to be produced, and chances are someone you know has one at home.

Who was Anna Castelli Ferrieri?

Ferrieri studied architecture at the Polytechnic University of Milan, graduating in 1943 – the same year she married Castelli. During her studies, she was influenced by Italian Rationalist architect Franco Albini and the Bauhaus school; both championed function, rigour and simplicity in design.

After the Second World War ended, Ferrieri established her own architecture studio in Milan. In these early years, she also engaged in journalism, becoming editor at two architecture magazines – Costruzioni and Casabella – as well as a correspondent for the English publication Architectural Design.

In 1949, Ferrieri and Castelli founded Kartell, initially focused on producing car accessories such as roof-mounted ski racks, before it expanded into domestic design. Little did the duo know that the company would go on to become a world-leading plastic furniture brand. In fact, it would be another 15 years until Ferrieri became involved in designing products for the company – preferring instead in the meantime to focus on architecture.

As an architect, Ferrieri predominantly worked on masterplans, housing and offices in and around Milan. During this time she joined the National Institute of Urban Planning (INU) and the Association for Industrial Design (ADI), later serving as the first female president of the ADI (1969–1971). From 1959 to 1973, she worked with architect Ignazio Gardella, with whom she designed the bright-red factory building outside Milan for Kartell in 1966.

Anna Castelli Ferrieri and the Kartell revolution

Ferrieri designed her first product for Kartell in 1964, in collaboration with Gardella: a plastic table for the residence attached to the Gritti Palace Hotel in Venice. Echoing the form of Eero Saarinen’s famous ‘Tulip’ table (1956), with its central stand, the table reflected the shifting consumer desires of the day while pushing forward the innovation of using plastic for furniture – a material that had previously been seen as as only appropriate for industrial applications.

Ferrieri started designing products for Kartell more regularly in 1966, and with her input the role of plastic furniture cemented the company’s identity – and success. Her design vision was aesthetically one of geometric shapes, bold colour and glossy finishes; more than that, she truly believed in producing practical, affordable, everyday furniture that could enhance people’s lives.

The Kartell Componibili

Once at Kartell, Ferrieri was quickly preoccupied with developing a mobile, modular storage system from injection-molded ABS (alias acrylonitrile butadiene styrene) – a glossy, strong plastic. That journey led her to design the ‘Componibili’, a cabinet of different sizes and configurations that could double as a side table, in an array of bright colours. Starting as rectangular in 1967 before adopting its now-famous cylindrical form in 1969, this is the design that has become synonymous with Kartell, and commonplace in design-conscious homes around the world.

The ‘Componibili’ was featured in the seminal 1972 exhibition, ‘Italy: The New Domestic Landscape’, at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, pointing the way towards a more contemporary lifestyle in which both society and interiors were liberated from tradition.

In 1976, Ferrieri was finally appointed Kartell’s art director, a position she held until 1987. She continued to design popular pieces – including colourful plastic tableware (‘Kartell in Tavola’, 1976) and award-winning stackable seating (‘4870 Chair’, 1986). She also published the book ‘From Project to Product: Plastic and Design’ (1984).

1980s and 90s: after Kartell

In 1988, Ferrieri and Castelli sold Kartell to their son-in-law, Claudio Luti. Ferrieri had already shifted into teaching, passing on her knowledge and perspectives on design to the next generation. She taught at Milan Polytechnic (1984–1986), the Domus Academy (1987–1992) and the RMIT Centre for Design in Melbourne (1992). In 1990 she founded the design studio ACF Officina, working alongside young Italian and international designers.

The most significant archive of Ferrieri’s work is housed at the Kartell Museum in Noviglio, Italy. Meanwhile, her ‘Componibili’ designs continue to be manufactured, enduring in their practical and aesthetic appeal.

Discover Anna Castelli Ferrieri's key works

‘Componibili’ (1967–9)

‘4822 Stool’ (1979)

‘Servomuto’ (1986)

‘4870 Chair’ (1986)

‘4841 Armchair’ (1988)

There are few hotels that are as much a part of London’s story as The Savoy. For more than 135 years, its guest book has been a who’s who of the world’s most celebrated artists, actors and musicians, from Claude Monet and Frank Sinatra to Marilyn Monroe, all the while setting standards with innovations like electric lighting, 24-hour room service and Britain’s first electric hotel lifts – today’s famous Red Lift – where nervous guests were once offered smelling salts before stepping inside. Now marking a new chapter, London-based hospitality design studio GA has carefully reimagined the hotel’s Edwardian and Art Deco interiors with a lighter palette, bespoke British craftsmanship and modern-day comforts, while preserving the character that has made The Savoy one of the capital’s best-loved landmarks.

Wallpaper* checks in at The Savoy, London

What’s on your doorstep?

Set between the Strand and the River Thames, The Savoy puts much of London within walking distance. Covent Garden is just around the corner, the West End’s theatres are minutes away while the Southbank Centre, Tate Modern and the National Theatre are just a stroll across Waterloo bridge, which also has some of the city’s finest views. Somerset House, Trafalgar Square, St James’s and Mayfair are all within easy reach too, making it easy to spend the day gallery hopping, shopping and exploring London’s historic streets. Be sure to make use of the concierge, who are at hand to unlock everything from sought-after restaurant tables to theatre tickets.

Who is behind the design?

The work of hospitality design studio GA, the Edwardian rooms have been refreshed with warm silvers, ivory silks, marble and antique brass, accented with ochre and amber tones, while the Art Deco rooms embrace richer shades of the hotel’s signature green alongside polished finishes and subtle geometric detailing inspired by the glamour of the 1920s. Throughout, original architectural features, including fireplaces and intricate cornicing, have been carefully restored, while bespoke furniture, artworks inspired by the neighbouring Savoy Theatre and an emphasis on British craftsmanship preserve the hotel’s heritage while bringing it firmly into the 21st century.

The room to book

Thanks to the hotel’s overhaul, all of the rooms are worth booking, but from the window seat of the Grand River View Suite, it’s easy to lose yourself watching London go by. Here, the updated Edwardian interiors bring a lighter, more refined feel to the room that, together with spectacular views of the London Eye, the Houses of Parliament and the Thames, makes staying in just as appealing as heading out. Amenities including Penhaligon bathroom toiletries, yoga mats and colour-changing vanity mirrors come standard, but guests in the River Suites get access to the dedicated butler services as well as use of the house car.

Staying for drinks and dinner?

Surrounded by some of London’s best restaurants, including the recently relaunched Simpson’s in the Strand, there are plenty of reasons to eat out. Yet dining has been central to The Savoy ever since the hotel set new standards for fine dining and service that would shape luxury hotels to come. Today, breakfast is served in the recently redesigned Gallery, where curved banquette seating, Murano glass chandeliers and a soft palette of greens, creams and blush tones create an elegant backdrop for classic dishes from Omelette Arnold Bennett to Grilled Kippers.

Later in the day, The River Restaurant, with its Thames views, offers an approachable British seafood menu where the fish and chips are difficult to pass up. Elsewhere, Savoy Grill continues its long tradition of British and French classics, while Restaurant 1890 offers a more intimate Michelin-starred experience. Before leaving, it’s worth finding time for a cocktail at the legendary American Bar or the black-and-gold Beaufort Bar, two of London’s great hotel drinking destinations.

Where to switch off

The spa and wellness facilities may not be the main reason for staying at The Savoy, but they’re a welcome retreat after a day exploring London. At its centre is a beautiful heated swimming pool, set beneath a glass atrium that fills the space with natural light, alongside a sauna, steam room and well-equipped gym. Meanwhile, a rotating programme of visiting wellness brands, offers everything from massages to Natura Bissé bespoke facials including the Citrus Ultimate Essence Radiance.

The verdict

It would have been easy for the refurbishment to dilute what has made The Savoy so special for more than a century, but the refreshed rooms have preserved the hotel’s character while elevating the experience for the next generation of guests.

The Savoy is located at Strand, London WC2R 0EZ, United Kingdom

They have been emitting, as their founding motto has it, 'The stink of excellence in a world gone tits up since 2004.' They are Modern Toss, cartoon chroniclers extraordinaire of the early 21^st century, scabrous and sweary inheritors of the mantles of both Hogarth and Viz. And this month the artist duo of Mick Bunnage and Jon Link are being honoured with an anniversary exhibition.

Running at the Drawing Room in Bermondsey, South London, it’s titled Having an exhibition yeah?, with Modern Toss’s – how shall we put it? – f*ck-you insouciance baked into its very title. Here, looking all fancy and large-format, are scrappy scribbles of argy-bargy office drones ('I can’t come in today so f*ck off'; 'I think I’ll go home, I’m a bit bored'); toxic workplaces (at a clifftop coastguard station, a manager declares: “Come on mate, I’m not paying you to look out the f*cking window”); and comic characters such as Mr Tourettes, Awkward C*nt and Gitanes-smoking, beret-wearing Art Dog. The Beano it ain't.

The contemporary workplace is their playground, as befits a partnership that began when Link, then a graphic designer, and Bunnage, a journalist, met while in an office job. Albeit that office belonged to the year-zero ’90s lads' mag Loaded.

'It was very freeform at Loaded,' says Link with admirable understatement of an undeniably creative office with the energy and boundaries of a piss-up in a zoo. 'You could just suggest things and the art department worked with the journalists in creative and weird ways. And that's how I started working with Mick, through discussing ideas and then turning them into something.'

This was less a culture of punching the clock than punching other things, including, occasionally, each other. Hence their proto-Modern Toss work, a cartoon strip published in the magazine called Office Pest.

'It was about experimental violence in the workplace,' says Link, who does the drawings. 'And we were actually witnessing a lot of that at Loaded. On the face of it, it looked like an actual office. But there were some very odd things going on in there. Office Pest was influenced by that, and was our way of trying to deal with this office we were in.'

Alongside featuring some of their greatest hits, the exhibition includes a 'working prototype' of what these proud ethno-linguists and champions of gutter Anglo-Saxon are calling 'the first ever UK Swear Map, an interactive artwork and growing archive of regional swearing slang', created with actual academics at the University of Sheffield. There is, too, a Photo Booth offering art-goers an instant portrait courtesy of Link’s wonky pen, and a showing for 'a particularly potent section' of the F*ckyeux Tapestry. It’s their crowd-sourced, 103-metre 'cartoon reimagining of the Bayeux Tapestry'. It features, quite possibly, even more phalluses than – in Modern Toss’s uniquely modern worldview – the manky old bit of French cloth that’s about to be unveiled at another art institution across town.

'I'm sure the British Museum are thrilled that we've done a version that audiences can experience for much cheaper than visiting the original,' says Bunnage. 'Which isn't that good! And we've got more jokes in ours.'

And don’t be fooled by the pair’s cartoons’, well, tossed-off aesthetic. 'Writing jokes is really hard sometimes,' sighs Bunnage. 'It looks like it's taken two seconds, which is about how long it takes to read it, but it might have taken us all afternoon. Which is really embarrassing.'

Modern Toss on 21 years of cartoons

Crudités and crudities: isn’t a 21st anniversary exhibition, with a private view and everything, a little “art establishment” and boring for you guys?

Jon Link: Well, it's actually not the 21st anniversary. It’s more like the 22nd or 23rd. So it's quite good already because it's just a lie.

“The stink of excellence in a world gone tits up since 2004.” Would you say that was a good, future-proofed summation – pessimistic but realistic – of the founding Modern Toss ethos?

Mick Bunnage: Yeah. We anticipated when we started that that was going to be the case. So it worked out quite well.

Link: We're playing a long game on that one.

If working at Loaded was your contextual influence, what were you artistic inspirations?

Bunnage: Viz was a big thing. That was a big thing for us and for Loaded. But we wanted to do something totally new: the simplest possible route to getting a laugh. Jon's drawings were so simple. So we just sat in the pub with a bit of paper and a pencil, and did about 10 cartoons straight off. And we were rocking!

Link: One of the things we first started talking about was cartoons, because we were both into them. We shared some old cartoonists that we liked. We both really like Saul Steinberg and James Thurber.

Bunnage: Also Pete[r Cook] and Dud[ley Moore], Jacques Tati films, Mel Calman cartoons, The Ramones, Mike Judge, greetings cards from 1973 and Novelty Rock by Denim.

The rough and ready nature of the drawings, the wonky squiggles of a lot of the characters: is that a fundamental of Modern Toss?

Link: I think it is. A lot of it came from when we were sitting together talking about ideas, and I’d have an A4 sheet of paper, and [the squiggles] would just be written down to remind us of the joke. And that would be it. That would then be scanned. And that would be the finished thing done.

That gives it a real urgency. It feels like it's done at the same time as a joke, which is quite a powerful thing. [Other cartoonists] put a lot of work into drawings. But with jokes, it doesn't necessarily help a lot of the time.

Can you break down, please, the power of the well-deployed swear?

Bunnage: It is tricky because people always think that we're swearing to upset people. And we're not. It's just punctuation, really. You bung it in because it sounds good. But it is dramatic as well. You can elevate the punch of the joke by sticking in some bit of lazy swearing. It's brilliant, works really well. But it is mostly how people that we know talk. And how talk as well.

Link: What we're doing is really stripped-down captions. We do notice it ourselves, if there's too much swearing in. We often do stuff and then go through it, and we call it the “f*ck sensor” – take a few out or move them around a bit. Just to get a balance

The UK Swear Map: what's the importance of getting a proper linguist, the University of Sheffield’s Dr Chris Montgomery, involved with that?

Link: It came out of an earlier exhibition. In Liverpool, it was suggested to us we should do a localised version of the periodic table using Scouse swearwords. So we put this small thing together and people really responded to it.

Then it happened that the next exhibition was in Sheffield, and they have these big university language departments. So we made contact with them and had a chat with Chris. He said it was a really good idea because people think language is becoming the same everywhere. This map proves that it isn't. There are still these pockets of language around the country that people are really proud of.

We just did Portsmouth for the Swear Map. F*cking hell, there's some stuff going on there! It seems like port areas have really strong [language heritage]. The main one there is dinlo: an outsider idiot that's not local to the area. It's not a particularly heavy swearword, but the way they use it improvise it into longer strands of terrible swearwords is just exceptional.

Any other favourite regional swearwords?

Bunnage: Prannet. No one says that anymore. That's just a berk. All that Cockney stuff is sort of gone, innit? People don't use it anymore. But you can actually use any word not as a swearword but as a comedy putdown. Prannet sounds like something technical, doesn't it?

And any personal favourite cartoons from the exhibition?

Bunnage: There’s a bloke staring at the countryside through binoculars. And a fellow says to him: “Birdwatching?” He replies: “No I'm looking for somewhere to dump me fridge.” It looks really good as a massive landscape cartoon. [pause] The reason that we're not stand-up comedians is because we can't tell jokes. So we draw them.

Link: One that sticks in my mind is an early one from about 2004 – a bloke being interviewed in the street by a news person. And they say: “Are you worried about SARS?” And the other bloke just goes: “No I like it. I think it’s good.”

Bunnage: A lot of the early ones were just a bloke selling someone else to fuck off in various permutations.

Link: There’s a mid-period one: a funny-shaped coffin being lowered into another funny-shaped coffin. And the priest is saying: “And so we say our last goodbyes to Dave, buried alongside his wife, who was also a massive Tetris fan.” It's just a nice image. It's quite sophisticated for us.

What is the risk for any punter entering your Photo Booth at the exhibition?

Link: Funny you should say that. I've done a full risk report on it for the gallery. Well, Chat GPT did. There’s really no risk at all. You'll just get a really sh*t drawing at the end. With a stamp on it. Something you can keep forever.

Anger is, as they say, an energy. But when the real world is really very f*cking angry indeed, how do you stay funny?

Bunnage: Essentially, it’s not too hard because we're actually quite calm people. We don't stoke up anger. We just absorb it and stick it back out again. So, the more there is around, the more we neutralise it. We’re like anger blankets.

I'm going to say it's anger asbestos.

Bunnage Yeah, that's good. But that's dangerous, isn't it? You got to get that shipped away by a professional.

How good a living have you made from two decades of been rude, crude and angry?

Bunnage: Terrible! We’d be better of being vets, or doing dentistry.

Link: It's a way of life, really. A slight curse in a way. But what else are you gonna do?

Having an exhibition yeah? — 21 Years of Modern Toss, Drawing Room, Bermondsey, London SE1 5WS, until 6th September 2026. Tickets available at drawingroom.org.uk

Merit Beauty is making its hospitality debut with The Ritz-Carlton, introducing beauty carts, in-room kits and a fragrance-paired martini at seven North American hotels. The collaboration will run throughout summer and early autumn at Ritz-Carlton properties in Toronto, Santa Barbara, Dallas, Washington DC, Naples, Los Angeles and New York, NoMad.

Beauty is now on The Ritz-Carlton’s room-service menu

Products are now appearing throughout the guest experience, from in-room dining to turndown and the bar. At selected hotels, Club Level guests will find a co-branded beauty cart stocked with complimentary Merit essentials: Great Skin Serum, a lightweight bi-phase formula that hydrates and brightens; Great Skin Double Cleanse, which removes make-up and gently exfoliates in one step; Clean Volume Mascara, offering buildable volume designed to last up to 16 hours; and the bestselling Flush Balm in Postmodern, a deep pink-brown shade. Merit Beauty educators will also visit selected properties to offer personalised product guidance.

The room-service menu provides another route into the collection. Guests can order beauty bundles housed in a custom canvas pouch, bringing Merit’s pared-back approach to getting ready into the bedroom. Come evening, co-branded chocolates and skincare samples may arrive at turndown, while participating bars will serve a ‘Minimalist Martini’ alongside a sample of the brand’s Retrospect fragrance.

A limited-edition travel kit combines the same four essentials in a co-branded pouch with an exclusive keychain, available in-room and online. ‘Merit creates products that are meant to live with you, especially when you’re on the go,’ says chief marketing officer Aila Morin. For the brand, hospitality felt like ‘a natural step.’

meritbeauty.com, ritzcarlton.com

‘To me, Comme des Garçons embodies the absolute freedom to dress however you want,’ says Octavius La Rosa, founder of the Melbourne-based Dot Comme, a dealer of rare Japanese fashion. Next month, La Rosa – one of the world's most prolific collectors of Comme des Garçons – will part with 265 rare pieces from the Dot Comme collection at a landmark auction in London (15 September 2026).

Held in association with London-based auction house Kerry Taylor Auctions, the sale marks an opportunity to purchase pieces which span the breadth of Rei Kawakubo’s career – from the early years of Comme des Garçons in Tokyo, Japan (she founded the avant-garde label in 1973), to those from seminal collections like ‘Body Meets Dress – Dress Meets Body’ (S/S 1997) and ‘Broken Bride’ (A/W 2005). There will also be an offering from Junya Watanabe, a protégé of Kawakubo whose eponymous label sits under the Comme des Garçons umbrella of brands.

‘I took a trip to Tokyo when I was 18 and fell in love with the pieces I found at the second-hand stores,’ says La Rosa, who has operated a Dot Comme store in Melbourne for 50 years, as well as a newer location in Saint-Germain, Paris (his full 4,000-piece collection will move to the French city this autumn). ‘I took a suitcase full home, and that was the start of my love affair with the brand. The aim was always to build a collection first, business second, and nothing has changed – I still spend 70 per cent of my waking hours thinking about Comme.’

Notable pieces in the sale include a black raincoat from the 1970s (‘it is rare to find pieces from Rei Kawakubo’s early collections in Japan’), a wool ensemble from her A/W 1981 ‘Pirates’ collection (part of the first collection she showed in Paris which marked the arrival of a radical new force in fashion), and an intricate trompe l’oeil dress from A/W 2005 ‘Broken Bride’, which represents a shift towards the ‘explosive’ silhouettes which would define Comme des Garçons ouevre in the 2010s and 2020s. A handful of menswear garments will also be available in the sale.

Kawakubo, who is now 83 years old, is one of contemporary fashion’s most influential forces, known for both her provocative runway collections – garments often operate more like sculpture, featuring bold protrusions of fabric and manipulated silhouettes – and concept retail spaces, including Dover Street Market, which she founded with husband Adrian Joffe in 2004 (it now has outposts in Tokyo, Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Beijing and Singapore). Her work has been featured in several exhibitions, including ‘Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between’ at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, in 2017, and the more recent ‘Westwood Kawakubo’ at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, in 2025.

‘What I’ve only ever been interested in is clothes that one has never seen before, that are completely new, and how and in what way they can be expressed,’ she said on the occasion of the former. ‘Is that called fashion? I don’t know the answer.’

Kerry Taylor Auctions Presents Dot Comme: The Auction takes place on 15 September 2026. The collection will be available to view on 11 September, 13 September and 14 September at Kerry Taylor Auctions, 249-253 Long Lane, London SE1 4PR.

kerrytaylorauctions.com

Hitotomori joins the Wallpaper* Architects Directory 2026 - welcome this young Japanese practice to our annual round-up of exciting emerging architecture studios.

Who: Hitotomori

Hitotomori (a name with a dual meaning in Japanese: either ‘people and forest’ or ‘one light’) is a small Japanese studio founded in 2019 by Yoshiaki Nagasaka. The office is in Nara, at the edge of the Kasuga Primaeval Forest, in a renovated, 140-year-old multipurpose machiya building with a small shop/cafe (run by Nagasaka’s wife), a one-room hotel (run by the studio), and the architectural office of its small team of five people.

Having worked for a large general contractor for almost 30 years, Nagasaka longed for more freedom and ‘the opportunity to pursue more creative work in an environment where I could work closely with friends,’ he explains, describing his reasons for setting up his own practice. ‘This freedom is now the driving force behind my work,’ he continues.

Spanning a wide variety of residential, commercial, and hospitality projects, Nagasaka’s no-frills design approach and clever use of ordinary materials have attracted quite a following, keeping the small studio constantly busy with several projects running simultaneously.

Nagasaka’s main influences are the architecture of Alvar Aalto, the thinking of Louis Kahn (‘Structure is the giver of light’ and ‘Even a common, ordinary brick wants to be something more than it is’), and the work of his friend and fellow architect Taro Tsuruta of Tsuruta Architects in London.

What: House in Asuka

Completed in 2024, the House in Asuka is quintessentially Hitotomori. Designed in about five months and built in six, the compact 65 m² home sits on a corner site in a protected area of the small village of Asuka in Nara Prefecture. It is partly screened from the two roads by a simple wooden fence, above which only the tiled roof, required by local regulations, is visible. Simple concrete steps set in grey gravel lead up to a small landing and the front door.

Inside, the interior is kept simple, with cedar floorboards, lauan doors and bespoke furniture, painted walls, and Hitotomori’s original concrete tiles forming the kitchen splashback. To make the most of the modest 65 m² footprint, Nagasaka has added several small loft spaces, accessible by a staggered staircase in one location and a simple ladder in another. Lighting is provided by one of Nagasaka’s close collaborators, New Light Pottery, with its Mob 26 bracket light used throughout the space.

Why: Architects Directory 2026

When the Wallpaper* Architects’ Directory was conceived in 2000, it was built as our bespoke international index of emerging architectural talent. Now in its 25th edition, our annual listing of promising practices from across the globe (now comprising over 500 alumni) champions the best and most promising young studios - a snapshot of talent showcasing inspiring work from all corners of the Earth with an emphasis on the residential realm.

This year’s anniversary survey includes 30 young studios (one for each of the 30 years of Wallpaper*), from Australia, Bahrain, Benin, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Denmark, Ecuador, Ghana, Greece, France, Ivory Coast, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Kuwait, India, Morocco, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, the UK, the USA, and Vietnam. Welcome to the promise, ideas and exciting architecture of the Wallpaper* Architects’ Directory 2026.

hitotomori.net

Although lighting designer Nathan Orsman likens his role in interiors to that of a 'back-up dancer', he appreciates the opportunity to get involved with the design of a space from the beginning. 'We make architecture look incredible and help architects show their work in the best possible way,' he tells Wallpaper*. The founder of New York-based studio Orsman Design believes a 'great amount of success' comes out of a hands-on incorporation of lighting into an overall design vision. Therefore, it is not uncommon that he suggests placing a door further down the hallway for optimum natural light or moving a wall to hang art where it can best stand out at night time.

Orsman’s philosophy is rooted in his belief that 'light is about movement through a space'. The Australian-born designer’s recent Elle Mara Garage project in Sagaponack, New York, reflects this trust in illuminating interiors with both bold decisions and a fleeting tactility.

The true charm in lighting the private residence’s car garage and basketball court was the opportunity to orchestrate a feeling texturally different from interior designer Tony Ingrao’s white and creamy tones in the rest of the Hamptons house. The garage and the adjacent court, which are reached through a wine cellar, immediately pop with Orsman’s curation of sleek tones and cinematic lighting. 'We wanted to give this feeling of descending into a fully illuminated nightclubby set-up,' explains the designer, who does justice to his vision with resin-poured black walls and grey floors.

With his clients’ openness for something ‘completely unexpected [given] the rest of the house’, Orsman created a visceral sunken display room for seven cars, each crowned with a custom-stretched membrane light panel.

While these ceiling lights can be switched between cool and warm tones of white, a host of surface-mounted Ketra fixtures across the walls washes the dim interiors with painterly colours, ranging from a thick red to an energetic blue. This downlight system lets vehicles’ different finishes stand out with an elevated sculptural presence, whether a red Ferrari or a silver Benz. The ceiling lights yield a liquid, almost pond-like, illumination on the resin floor, as its surface dances between splashy hues of green and purple. 'We wanted to give the clients the ability to change the feeling of the space,' adds Orsman.

The basketball court, which is sunk even lower than the garage, expands this moody aura with sound-absorbing wall panelling in two shades of grey. The garage’s nocturnal atmosphere spills into the recreation area, where the hoop is illuminated with a dramatic series of ceiling fixtures. Pairs of disc-shaped lights that recall basketballs are held together with three stripes, similar to the boundary lines on a court’s floor. The bulletproof acrylic system, which is clipped into the ceiling with a magnetic receiver, is custom-produced by Italian company BlackLight.

The sleek project is one of many celebrated in Orsman’s upcoming Rizzoli book, Light: Illuminated Interiors and Architecture. The 320-page title tracks the designer’s trajectory of illuminating a wide span of homes across the United States, including those for Oprah Winfrey, Ina Garten, Stephen Colbert, Tommy Hilfiger, and Marc Jacobs, who penned the catalogue’s foreword.

The tome also documents Orsman’s trust in close collaborations with interior designers and architects, among them Wallpaper* US400 honoree Kelly Behun, Ashe Leandro, and Gil Schafer, to achieve nuanced touches of light. 'The powerful part in what we do is to pay attention to the negative space,' says Orsman. He adds: 'We have to be specific about what we are lighting up because sometimes less is more poignant.'

Light: Illuminated Interiors and Architecture comes out on September 29, 2026

With extraordinary modernist homes constantly under threat, the area of Studley Park in the Melbourne suburb of Kew is exceptionally rare. So too is its landscape, thick with gullies, steep hills, and escarpments, surrounded by wattles, gums, and pines. Remarkably, the native bushland setting is just five km from inner-city Melbourne.

Tour Australia's Studley Park and its modernist legacy

Long enamoured with houses of this era, architect Jake Taylor and accomplished architectural photographer Jack Lovel have documented the area and its houses with transparency and sensitivity for their new book, 'Riverside Modern: An architectural legacy in Studley Park.' Lovel and Taylor astutely refer to the peaceful locale as a 'reclusive suburb' and beautifully capture its handsome architectural treasures in this engrossing tome.

Adding to the allure of the neighbourhood is its lack of development and, in some cases, restrictive covenants and front fences. As a result, the streetscape has barely changed since the 1950s.

Lovel’s photographic style is sharp and clean, but the subject softens when it comes to the interiors, which depict the domestic life of its inhabitants without artifice. 'The houses are clearly loved by each unique owner, and we wanted to provide an honest look at these homes without any additional elements for the purpose of enhancing the visuals,' says Lovel, who reached out to owners via mailouts and letterbox drops. Word got around the tight community, which ultimately led to access.

Editorially discerning, the book only includes projects that are in original condition or renovated sympathetically in the spirit of the times. And each chapter attributes works done by subsequent architects, almost all of them still practising today. 'A key point of difference is that all the interiors were captured exactly as they are, featuring the owners' personal belongings, including artwork, antiques, and book collections. No additional styling was used; showing these homes honestly and authentically was a primary driver for the project,' adds Lovel.

Context is critical to the book, which tracks the history and development of the Studley Park enclave that is now populated by over 100 modernist homes constructed from the 1940s to 1970s. Largely agricultural until the postwar period when allotments were subdivided into residential blocks, Studley Park’s challenging slopes and Birrarung (Yarra River) made it difficult to reproduce the classic Edwardian and Victorian styles that had, until then, dominated Melbourne’s architectural landscape.

Together with advancements in materials, these constraints opened the door for innovation, with a wave of pioneering names such as Roy Grounds and Guilford Bell, and visionary émigré European architects leading the charge. 'Riverside Modern' highlights incredibly impressive mid-century projects, including the Bell House by Russian-born Anatol Kagan and Milston House by Ernest Milston, a Czechoslovakian architect who built the cul-de-sac property for himself. The humble house, with its butterfly roof form, sits below street level, and its lightweight construction reflects the frugality of the postwar era.

Formatted in chronological order, Riverside Modern opens with the 1946 Pettigrew House by iconic architects Robin Boyd, Kevin Pethebridge and Frank Bell, its construction completed in stages due to material shortages at the time. With its floating upper volume and slim roof eave, blank brick walls and high clerestory windows, it’s demonstrative of one of the earliest postwar houses in Melbourne.

A number of practicing architects’ private homes are showcased too, including the 1958 Williams House which surrounds an internal courtyard, the rear built at ground level and the front cantilevered outward into a tree canopy. Rescued from demolition by the current owner-architect Albert Mo, recent works involve a near-original restoration and a vertical expansion of the rear with a custom-designed drawbridge.

Among other featured homes is McGlashan Everist’s Guss House (1963), known for its floating glass-box form. Built from a thin steel structural frame and linked glazed pavilions, it’s evidently influenced by the minimalist work of Marcel Breuer and Mies van der Rohe.

'Our objective was to celebrate the breadth and diversity of this enclave rather than focusing on a single architect,' says Lovel. 'It is rare to find so many significant modernist homes in such close proximity.'

'Riverside Modern is on sale from 1 September 2026

AU $85

www.thamesandhudson.com.au

Saikindō begins with a convincing piece of misdirection. At the end of the Four Seasons Hotel Abu Dhabi lobby on Al Maryah Island, guests arrive at what appears to be a fashion atelier, lined with embroidered sukajan jackets and accessories inspired by 1980s Japan. A concealed door then opens onto a densely layered world of analogue sound, yakitori smoke and Bōsōzoku biker swagger. The bar takes its name from an informal Japanese way of asking, ‘How have you been?’ – apt for a watering hole aimed at the island’s after-work crowd.

Wallpaper* drinks at Saikindō, Abu Dhabi

The mood: James Bond in a sukajan jacket

AvroKO built the concept around three references: Japan’s 1960s Metabolism movement, the timber craft of vintage speakers and ‘Bond-zoku’. The studio describes the latter as James Bond having ‘traded the tuxedo for a sukajan jacket from the Bōsōzoku gang’.

The entrance corridor repeats circles and squares across its walls, its carved openings and backlighting recalling both radio static and modular Metabolist structures. In the main lounge, shallow timber speaker forms climb the walls; oak, jade velvet and polished metal give the room the warmth of vintage audio equipment. The central DJ booth directs the layout, flanked by vinyl shelves and two diagonal mixing stations, while the flush bar counter places bartenders and guests at the same eye line.

Elsewhere, the private Kūkan room pairs a concealed DJ booth with embroidered flaming tigers. Outside, a woven mural recasts Ultraman, King Kong and Godzilla as decorative craft.

The drinks: twelve songs on two sides

Beverage director Marco Corallo structured the Aji No Hibiki (‘Resonance of Flavour’) menu like a record, dividing its 12 song-inspired cocktails between Side One and Side Two. The bassline, tempo and melody of each track informed its flavour profile. Big Poppa combines sotol, Campari, wasabi, tomato dashi and vanilla; Like Sugar uses vodka, black sesame, banana, tonic and blueberry balsamic. Several drinks are also available as free-spirited serves.

Food comes from the 18-seat Robata Room, where chef Slamet Wahyudi serves A5 wagyu tartare with smoky mustard and a charcoal bun; lobster negima grilled with yuzu kosho butter; and Kobe sirloin skewers with yolk tare and torched spring onion.

Saikindō is located at Four Seasons Hotel Abu Dhabi at Al Maryah Island, Abu Dhabi Global Market Street, Abu Dhabi, UAE

The demand for unique automobiles continues to rise amongst the uber-wealthy. Aside from lavishly bespoke creations from the likes of Rolls-Royce, the most vivid expressions of automotive singularity come from the world of supercars and hypercars. With memories of this year’s Monterey Car Week fast fading, we’ve assembled five examples of contemporary hypercar unicorns that look set to resurface at future concours for decades to come.

Porsche Flachbau RS

First up is Porsche, who rarely venture into the realm of the unique car (perhaps realising that individual takes on their iconic design language are better served by others, such as the recent Singer x Louis Vuitton collaboration. Nevertheless, occasionally a special customer request is granted. This is the Flachbau RS, a blend of GT2 and GT3 components assembled as part of Porsche’s Sonderwunsch (‘special request’) programme.

The initiating object of veneration in this case is Porsche’s 1970s-era race cars, particularly the Flachbau (‘slantnose’) 935 GT racer. That informs the frontal treatment, which eschews the familiar Porsche lighting set-up in favour of a more streamlined, aerodynamic form, with an outrageous rear wing taken from the 911 GT3 R rennsport. The body shape was also guided by the iconic 935/78 race car known as Moby Dick, thanks to its whale-like tail.

Power comes from the 700bhp 911 GT2 RS engine and inside and out the car has been stripped back to the bare minimum. The customer specified the highest levels of performance, so the car underwent over a 1,000km on Germany’s Nürburgring Nordschleife circuit. A two-tone race-inspired paint job finishes off the fully road-legal machine.

Porsche.com, @Porsche

Ferrari HC25

Ferrari’s design studio has created two one-off Special Project cars in recent months, starting with HC25. Based on the F8 Spider, the mid-engined roadster that ended production in 2023 to be replaced by the 296, Ferrari’s design team under Flavio Manzoni created a purist, minimal machine defined by its strong graphic elements.

The car, which its public debut in the US this summer, adopts a form language that’s closer in spirit to the F80, especially in the way the dark graphic form swoops over the engine cover to terminate in front of the real wheel arches. This element, which contrasts with the Moonlight Grey bodywork, houses all the car’s thermal management functions, from air intakes to heat extracts.

These forms are carried through into the interior through yellow stitching patterns on the seats. HC25 also features unique five-spoke wheels, with Ferrari’s signature yellow used on the brake callipers and badges.

Ferrari.com, @Ferrari

Ferrari CZ26

The next car from Ferrari Special Projects is the CZ26, debuted at this year’s Monterey Car Week. Commissioned by an American client, the CZ26 is an evolution of Ferrari’s SF90 Stradale, with a more technical, precise design language. Dare we say it, but there are even hints of the Ferrari Luce in the re-shaped front end, the flanks and the relationship between sills and bodywork. Overall, the bodywork gives the glasshouse a more capsule-like appearance, sitting atop the bodywork – another nod to the Luce.

Manzoni and his team cite the influence of Italian industrial design from the 1970s, particularly in the use of spot contrasting colours, with Rosso Lampante red and yellow picking out callipers, badges and the leading edge of the air intakes above the rear wheel arch.

The Argento Veloce bodywork is paired with unique gloss black wheels, and the technical influence carries through to the interior where a special black fabric is used along bespoke carbon fibre trim elements. At its heart, the CZ26 is an ultra-high-performance hybridized supercar.

Ferrari.com, @Ferrari

Bugatti Destrier

At this point in time, pretty much everything Bugatti does is unique. The original hypercar manufacturer is currently turning its hand to creating singular pieces of automotive sculpture for a vociferous contingent of diehard collectors. The company’s most recent series of one-of-one cars is dubbed the Programme Solitaire, a sort of biannual collector's experience club for the 1%. The most recent machine to emerge from the programme is the Bugatti Destrier, another MCW debut.

Bugatti call the car a ‘pure sculpture of speed’. The Destrier is an evolution of the track-only Bugatti Bolide, only this time the stops have all been yanked out to give the hypercar a more elegant, luxurious road-going focus. Following the official client handover at Maison Bugatti on Pebble Beach, the car went on public display on the Concours’ Concept Lawn.

At just 1m tall, the Destrier is the lowest Bugatti ever made. It’s also massively wide, incorporating a two-seater cabin swathed in leather, nubuck and 3D-printed textiles. The Sapphire Celeste bodywork was inspired by the 1936 Type 57SC Atlantic, whilst the Destrier is built around the company’s signature W16 engine, an 8-litre behemoth that puts out 1,600PS and remains the marque’s USP and blinking lure for the car collector.

Bugatti.com, @Bugatti

McLaren McL 6GT

Admittedly not a one-off customer car but a concept, the McLaren McL 6GT was a surprise introduction at 2026 Monterey Car Week. Widely understood to preview the next generation of McLaren road cars, the McL 6GT marks a return to a more analogue approach for the company’s supercars.

The concept certainly breaks from past design language, owing more than a little to Bruce McLaren’s M6GT, a one-off road car created in the late 60s by the company’s founder and now considered to be the starting point of McLaren Automotive.

As well as re-working its visual language, the McL 6GT includes a manual gearbox, hydraulic steering, and tactile physical switchgear, all indications of the growing backlash against synthetic digital drivetrains and cockpits in luxury cars. The concept also shares its ancestor’s approach to lightweight design, only here the principal material is carbon fibre. A production version will arrive in 2028.

McLaren.com, @McLarenAuto

Innovative Japanese craftsmanship lies at the heart of Seiko, which celebrates its designers’ creativity with an annual event in London. The Power Design Project – this year titled Passionately and Obsessively Crafted Watches – returns to Japan House, inviting Seiko’s in-house designers to play with the conventions of the traditionally uniform watch design.

The components of the watch itself are considered by the designers here, from the dial textures to the hands and watch surfaces, elements which are often overlooked but require intrinsic artistry and great care.

‘I told the designers, ‘We welcome ideas that go all out!’’ says Grand Seiko design director Shinichiro Kubo on the first Power Design Project relaunch in 2022. ‘Usually, when working on regular products, we design with clear goals and boundaries in mind and, for better or worse, we become accustomed to that way of thinking. So I reassured them that even ideas that might make them wonder – ‘Is it really OK to release something like this?’ – were acceptable. But I also emphasised that it had to be a full-swing effort – no holding back.’

This year’s watches are both playful and surprising, replacing traditional hands with cats, creating a textured maze instead of the usual bar indices and replacing the day indicator with positive text-based messages.

‘People have long asked, ‘Why do we still need watches in this digital age?’’ says Hisashi Fujieda, manager of the Seiko R&D Department. ‘In some countries, more and more people are unable to read analogue timepieces. That’s why I hope, through exhibitions like these, we can continue to showcase the beauty of analogue technology and help people rediscover the unique appeal of watches.’

Kubo adds: ‘Before we began these projects, watch exhibitions mostly appealed only to watch enthusiasts. But this time, we managed to engage people who had never shown much interest in watches before. That, for us, was the most rewarding part.’

Seiko’s ‘Passionately and Obsessively Crafted Watches’ exhibition from 27th August – 15th September 2026 at Japan House London. Free admission

japanhouselondon.uk

Arizona, with its majestic landscapes, staggering biodiversity and arid climate, has long spurred the architectural imagination. Most famously, the Grand Canyon State was the longtime muse of Frank Lloyd Wright, who first travelled there in the 1920s before setting up Taliesin West, the desert outpost of his Wisconsin home and school, in 1937. ‘The saguaro is the greatest example of a skyscraper that was ever built,’ the architect insisted.

Nearly a century after Wright’s first visit, Arizona continues to inspire architects, eager to create light-on-the-land buildings that tame the region’s harsh conditions while framing the dramatic topography. It’s little wonder that the state became a proving ground for desert modernism. Residential architecture is where these principles especially shine – and luckily, we’ve been privileged to publish some of the most innovative Arizona homes. From a retreat made from humble concrete block to a stainless-steel-clad residence that reflects the cactus-studded terrain, these five innovative Arizona houses beat the heat and stir the soul.

An ‘elegantly austere’ oasis outside Phoenix

Architect Darren Petrucci, principal of the Scottsdale-based firm A-I-R likes to design residential projects around a single, big gesture. In the case of this Arizona house outside of Phoenix, that form was a ‘long, bent bar.’ That massing enables the home, constructed from concrete block and stucco, to perch on a ridge on the site to take advantage of dramatic views to Camelback Mountain in the distance. The exterior is pale, to allow the intense sun to reflect back. But Petrucci and his team kept the interiors dark, to minimise reflections and keep the rooms cool. 'The analogy I typically give a client is a football player putting black under his eyes to reduce glare,’ the architect said. A series of austere indoor/outdoor spaces – including a pristine swimming pool – further prove that life in this home is quite literally made in the shade.

A concrete-block build for a multi-generational family

To look at this sleek Phoenix, Arizona house, you’d never guess that it began its life as an ordinary 1970s suburban home. But local architect Benjamin Hall cleverly expanded and reconfigured the structure to house a multi-generational dwelling using a surprising material: concrete masonry units. What resulted was a minimalist 1,700 sq ft addition, that is as cost-effective as it is insulated from the harsh Arizona climate. 'We had been looking to downsize, but never found what we wanted,' the client told us. 'So we did it by building.'

A scene-stealing retreat overlooking Tucson

Scenic designer Scott Pask has designed sets for blockbuster plays like the Book of Mormon – so it’s no surprise that his Arizona desert home, located outside Tucson, brings the drama. He found the brick modernist residence, designed by architect Jerry Thayer in the 1960s, in 2013, and enlisted architect Graydon Yearick to modernise it. The improvements included lightening the interior, incorporating more windows and ripping up retro carpet. Pask also spent three years upgrading the landscape to be in keeping with the client and to be more resilient in the event of a wildfire. He planted cacti, prickly pear, yucca and agave – plants that perfectly melt into the views of the mountain foothills beyond.

A saguaro-studded escape in Cave Creek

Cave Creek, Arizona, located outside of Phoenix, is filled with Old West lore, including the discovery of gold there in the 1870s. The owners of this dramatic home also struck gold, thanks to Phoenix-based firm Wendell Burnette Architects. The house is all planes and plinths, moves that allowed the architects to conceal mechanicals and create ample indoor/outdoor space. The overhanging canopy is clad in stainless steel, a material that reflects the saguaro-dotted desert landscape and views of Continental Mountain.

An midcentury modern-inspired apartment complex in Phoenix

This residential complex in Phoenix, designed by US400 firm Johnston Marklee, isn't technically a house, but it still exemplifies design principals that are uniquely Arizonan. Developed by Ray, the residential real estate company founded by Dasha Zhukova Niarchos, the building has more than 400 apartments. The modernist-inspired tower exterior is made of eye-catching green glass and metal, a move that at once evokes cacti and makes the building a banner in the cityscape. New York-based firm Parts and Labor Design took care of the interiors, which maintain the same mid-century vibes with a decidedly desert-y palette of terra-cotta hues, timber furnishings and plaster finishes. 'There’s a unique energy here shaped by the desert,’ Zhukova Niarchos told us.

Amid the pantomime of street style at Copenhagen Fashion Week’s S/S 2027 edition, Galib Gassanoff’s show provided a welcome jolt of poetry. Inside the Statens Museum for Kunst, the runway was lined with tightly patterned carpets from the Caucasus mountain region between the Black and Caspian Seas. These antique pieces became a platform for sculptured silk coats, finely knit shawl cardigans and spare black trousers, while evoking the tangled history of Central Asia, Northern Iran, Anatolia and Eastern Europe.

‘These carpets have specific knots which all of these cultures have shared in their making. They unified everyone as they each added their own ornaments, colours and gestures. The carpets represent this kind of sharing,’ Gassanoff tells Wallpaper*.

‘My idea is not about fashion. It is more about culture, ethnography, craftsmanship – that is what interests me the most. I’m a little far from the glam of fashion,’ the Zalando Visionary Award 2026 winner and finalist for the 2026 LVMH Prize says. Gassanoff presents under the name Institution. ‘It’s not a fashion brand, it’s a roof. It’s not only me, but also the team and communities I’m finding in my region; I want to amplify that to cover more regions, more stories and more places – that is my priority overall.’

Aesthetically and geographically, the city of Copenhagen is a fair distance away from Gassanoff’s roots. He grew up in a village of just 4,000 people on the outskirts of Tbilisi in Georgia where everyone spoke the same dialect and everyone, he remembers, looked alike. As a child, he was interested in folklore and clothing, the tradition of head scarves and so on, but he didn’t know what fashion design was. At 13, surfing the World Wide Web for the first time, he discovered John Galliano’s eccentric work for Dior.

‘That impacted me a lot. I saw lots of ethnographic elements showcased on a scene in a theatrical way, with the music and the characters. It resonated with me. I realised that maybe I could unify all my passions: music, visual art, clothing, culture, and message, all of it, through fashion.’

At 18, Gassanoff moved to Milan to study at Haute Future Fashion Academy after receiving a scholarship. ‘I have been a guest there, just like I am here in Copenhagen. I’m Azerbaijani of Georgia, so I’m an ethnic minority there too,’ he says. Italy has introduced Gassanoff to ways of making from the 1950s that are somewhat endangered today. Not many tailors are making in the same way, using horsehair and canvases or handstitched hemlines because it takes so much longer. ‘Everyone is rushing to industrialise everything but I wanted to keep all of that skill. Yes, you can do a lot with the machine, but I prefer that there is a human touch.’

Gassanoff’s show encapsulated that commitment to the artisanal: his models wore Azerbaijani ‘jorab’ socks and sculptural cotton cord tabards hand-knitted by women he’d met in his native region. White silk chiffon robes were covered in ‘Tetri’ coins, the fractional currency introduced after Georgia’s independence from the Soviet Union in 1995. They are a symbol of freedom, democracy and national rebirth. The pieces open to become totally flat, offering a new form as a wall piece or tapestry. ‘It’s not something to be sold, it’s something to be collected,’ he says. ‘It’s a one-of-a-kind piece. I’m trying to encourage a dialogue between what is art, what is textile, what is collectable, what is clothing.’

Gassanoff’s work is layered in the residue of the different places he represents and yet has stepped away from. It evokes the distance between Azerbaijan and Georgia; the move from village to city; fashion as a mode of art. Gassanoff’s guest spot on the week’s show schedule forged yet another context. A blank page. ‘Scandinavia couldn’t be an inspiration for me because I don’t live here. I worked a lot with volumes, but I wanted all the attention to be on the carpets, which are very rich. I am myself a guest here, and when I go back, it will remain a memory. A dream. Just like I went to sleep, and then woke up.’

institutionstudios.com

In Alex Prager’s work, nothing is ever quite what it seems. Her surreal, uncanny style sits at the periphery of reality and fantasy - which makes a new collaboration with Disney a more natural move than it may first appear.

‘This was a dream project for me,’ Prager tells Wallpaper*. ‘I felt a connection to the initial scripts and Disney is a personal favourite and inspiration of mine. I also had great partners, who were incredibly smart and creative. When I pitched doing everything in-camera with traditional practical effects, the response was excitement and I knew we were aligned for this story of childhood imagination and its lasting impact.’

Prager’s photographs and films consider human nature’s complexity, often through a cinematic and fantastical lens, which lends itself naturally to the short film Once A Princess, Always A Princess, created to mark World Princess Week. Taking a friendship between two young girls as the focus, the story zips between the imaginative world they create and the parallel, quotidian reality.

‘Those transitions were really important to me because I wanted the audience to understand when they were in the real world versus their imagination,’ Prager adds. ‘I didn’t want the real world to feel bleak because they are children and children see pretty much everything through a lens of play. Luckily I was working with Hoyte van Hoytema, Jahmin Assa and Paul Rogers who all brought such a sensitivity to the project. We would talk through my approach and then through conversations, seeing locations and telling stories about our own childhoods, ideas would evolve and grow through this. This became our playground, a place for us to craft this story together.’

Working in-camera - where effects were created during filming, instead of being added later in post-production - added a layer of magic to the creation process, says Prager. ‘It's real life movie magic, partially why I got into filmmaking in the first place. When effects are practical and in-camera, it feels more visceral because the sense of gravity and tactile nature reflect how we perceive emotion as something very physical. Every effect we used was physically rigged, from floating carpets to drifting clouds. For the underwater sequences, the team used the classic Hollywood “dry-for-wet” technique, and the puppets we created were all built of wood and felt and puppeteered in-camera, and the digital effects were used to integrate what we built practically.’

For Prager, the project has been a personal one, linking back to her experiences of watching the Disney Princesses as a child. ‘The Disney Princesses are iconic. They represent so much more than just pretty heroines on screen. For me they are like an Hermès bag or Marilyn Monroe. They are the modern day myth of Woman. They are layered. You see what you want in them, they are an amalgam of every female character that's ever been told, condensed into a few characters. They are every dream and nightmare - what you want in a good fairytale - and they are aspirational and inspiring.’

Christian Dior launched the original Miss Dior in 1947 alongside his famous ‘New Look’ collection as an olfactory homage to his beloved sister, Catherine, a French Resistance fighter who survived multiple concentration camps and, upon returning to France, dedicated her life to cultivating flowers. The 1947 perfume was an unconventional chypre-floral loaded with galbanum, gardenia, rose, leather, and patchouli. A bold, attention-catching scent that was somehow both soapy and animalistic, and defied – much like Catherine – the norms of the time.

The modern-day Miss Dior Eau de Parfum is a softer, more feminine interpretation of the original with notes of rose (a nod to Catherine’s love of her garden), tinged with vanilla and almond, and a delicate touch of wood. It has become an icon in its own right, a fact that made it all the more difficult for acclaimed French illustrator and art director Ugo Bienvenu to come up with a campaign concept for the scent that reflected its history while presenting viewers wth something novel.

‘We decided to focus on three key themes: inspiration (Catherine Dior, Christian’s sister, his childhood and Provence), creation (Christian Dior’s first fashion show and the first time the fragrance was unveiled), and continuity, the fragrance’s place in today’s world (a tribute to the various advertising campaigns),' says Bienvenu. 'We agreed on these ideas and developed a storyboard with Stephen Vuillemin and designs with Arthur Sevestre. We then set our animation team to work.’

The final creation is a joyful, technicolour celebration of the fragrance’s history, from its debut at Dior’s famous ‘New Look’ show in 1947, to its more contemporary iteration as a pink solution in a square, bow-topped bottle with the actress Natalie Portman as its spokeperson.

To develop the concept, Bienvenu and his team scoured ‘a huge amount of documentation covering the entire history of the fashion house and the fragrance’ that was given to them by Dior.

It is no surprise, then, that the film is steeped in historical brand references, some of which will be clear to those of the house, while others will only be spotted by the most devoted fans. It’s the first time the house has ever taken such an approach to the visuals for its fragrance. The finished product is not only playful but also points to Dior’s dedication to craft (the film’s backgrounds were created entirely by hand using gouache and acrylic paint) and commitment to push itself into modern and unexpected territories.

In the end, Bienvenu says, he tried to create a film that balanced the house’s history with a high-spirited vision. ‘We have tried to create a campaign that is dynamic, youthful, romantic and light-hearted too. Whilst highlighting that the fragrance is not new, it is deeply rooted in the history of the house and its creator. It features notes of time-honoured elegance.’

Watch the film below.

With its world-class concert halls and galleries, peaceful fountain court and large foyers wrapped in textured raw concrete walls, London’s Barbican is a haven for arts, architecture and design fans. Now they will be able to bring home a slice of the brutalist landmark’s aesthetics, thanks to a furniture collection by Made and the Barbican, available to buy now

Built in 1982 on the largest Second World War bomb site in the City of London, the Barbican was designed by Chamberlin, Powell and Bon as both a cultural and residential complex, and the new 23-piece collection finds inspiration not only in the estate’s public spaces – such as the concert hall and raised walkways – but also in some of its original apartments.

Explore the Made x Barbican furniture and lighting collection

The design team at Made, a homeware brand that aims to make high-end design accessible, worked closely with the Barbican, Europe’s largest multi-arts centre, sifting through its archives and researching the pioneering world of designer Miriam Howitt, who was tasked with creating five show homes for the development in the late 1960s.

Inspired by her travels to Scandinavia and bold Dutch interiors, Howitt’s work shaped the project’s direction, and resulted in a range of furniture, lighting, textiles and accessories infused with architectural references to the Barbican’s unique visual language of sculptural forms, modular layouts, grid structures and curved silhouettes.

‘The ambition was to create a complete product range that works both in isolation and together in an open living space,’ says Made’s in-house design team. ‘The final designs reimagine products, graphics and architectural details through a new lens, and into a cohesive product range that captures Barbican living: bold, considered and inherently social.’

The Barbican’s concrete architecture is softened by a recurring motif of semi-circles, often upside down, which appears throughout the complex, from the sills of the podium windows and the top-floor penthouse roofs, to fountains, stair towers, and the shape of the Frobisher Crescent apartment building at the centre of the estate.

In the new furniture collection, these signature curves can be found in the wooden side panels of the ‘Dual’ accent chairs, whose silhouette recalls the estate’s concrete pillars; the ‘Plinth’ coffee table, inspired by the sunken seating pods found next to the Barbican lake; or the ‘Curve’ lamp series, which echoes the Concert Hall’s tubular acoustic panels.

As well as the pick-hammered textured concrete (a massive undertaking that took nearly 17 years from the start of construction to completion), another key element of the Barbican is its heavy coffered ‘waffle’ ceilings – a concrete-saving structural grid that also creates a great pattern in the Barbican’s indoor and outdoor spaces. Their rounded square shape is mirrored by the ‘Coffer’ series of ceiling lights and wall lights.

Also available are two sofa designs, a dining table and chairs, and a wooden sideboard in stained ash. The warm colour palette found in the lights and soft furnishings, including moss greens and burgundy hues, is similar to the one Howitt used in her show apartments.

Accessories include a graphic cushion featuring the Barbican’s ‘boat edge’ balconies, as well as the ‘Brute’ retro deep-pile rug in ochre tones and white stripes. ‘In 1967, Howitt anchored the Barbican’s plain off-white flats with “show-stopping” patterned carpets,’ explains the Made design team. ‘By using bold colours to create visual weight, she ensured the spacious rooms felt grounded instead of empty.’

To celebrate the launch of the collection, Made will be creating a free immersive installation at the Barbican Centre in partnership with London Design Festival this September. Located at the Barbican Level G Hub Space, it will shine a light into the archives of the Barbican and the inspiration behind the collection.

Meanwhile, the Barbican is currently on the lookout for a designer to reimagine a bespoke range of up to 500 pieces of furniture across its public spaces, as part of a complete overhaul timed for its 50th anniversary. The competition is open to anyone, and proposals must be submitted online by the end of the month. Expectations are high – the original designer of the Barbican furniture was none other than Robin Day.

The ‘Made x Barbican’ collection, with prices starting from £32, is available at Made.com now , with selected items also available at the Barbican Shop.

Moyésoa, an emerging practice from Côte d'Ivoire, joins the Wallpaper* Architects’ Directory 2026, our annual round-up of exciting emerging architecture studios.

Who: Moyésoa

Hailing from Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, Moyésoa is an architecture and design laboratory founded by William Tailly and Natacha Djédjé in 2024. The studio’s name translates from the Baoulé language as ‘House of Happiness’, and embodies an essence imbued into every aspect of its work and reflected in the founders’ belief that ‘architecture should strengthen the relationship between people, climate and place’.

Tailly leads on creative and architectural direction, with a particular focus on earth construction, lime finishes and reclaimed materials, while Djédjé brings a sensitivity to landscape, planting strategies and developing projects as a ‘coherent ecosystem rather than a standalone building’. Together, in their work, they seek to ‘reveal the beauty of local materials and forgotten construction knowledge while responding to contemporary ways of living’.

For Moyésoa, the construction site is much more than just a place to build on. Rather, it's a site for architects, designers, and local artisans to come together to research, experiment, and share site-specific knowledge that alchemises local materialities and craftsmanship into timeless spatial designs. The pair explain, ‘Every project is an opportunity to create spaces that feel calm, lasting and deeply connected to their environment.’

Moyéoa will be representing Côte d’Ivoire at the upcoming Pan-African Architecture Biennale, which launches in early September 2026, feeding into broader Pan-African conversations as to how African architecture can respond to contemporary design challenges.

What: Pavillon Essoa

Essoa Pavilion is an eco-lodge built on the edge of a lagoon, surrounded by 7,500 sq m of botanical garden, offering an ‘immersive residential experience’. Inspired by tropical vernacular architecture, the villa is designed around ecological and bioclimatic principles, combining self-sufficiency, modularity and contemporary design. Planted courtyards link the independent volumes of living areas, to create a porous, breathable and smooth circulation between inside and outside. Rammed-earth walls use ancient technology to regulate indoor temperatures by reducing heat fluctuations, while terracotta floors and kitchen counters combine durability and elegance.

Wooden screens, with removable Plexiglas panels allow for modularity between natural ventilation and thermal insulation. The villa is powered by solar panels, and even features a private well for water. Each piece of furniture, and even the tableware, has been custom-designed by Moyésoa, with Ivorian craftsmanship and design knowledge at the core.

On what sets them apart, the architects explain: ‘Instead of importing architectural languages, we reinterpret local construction traditions through modern spatial thinking, refined detailing and carefully crafted atmospheres.’ The Essoa Pavilion is just one embodiment of this design motivation.

Why: Architects Directory 2026

When the Wallpaper* Architects’ Directory was conceived in 2000, it was built as our bespoke international index of emerging architectural talent. Now in its 25th edition, our annual listing of promising practices from across the globe (now comprising over 500 alumni) champions the best and most promising young studios - a snapshot of talent showcasing inspiring work from all corners of the Earth with an emphasis on the residential realm.

This year’s anniversary survey includes 30 young studios (one for each of the 30 years of Wallpaper*), from Australia, Bahrain, Benin, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Denmark, Ecuador, Ghana, Greece, France, Ivory Coast, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Kuwait, India, Morocco, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, the UK, the USA, and Vietnam. Welcome to the promise, ideas and exciting architecture of the Wallpaper* Architects’ Directory 2026.

@moyesoa

Don’t give up on the compact disc just yet. The quiet revival of the 1980s’ greatest format hasn’t reached the media peaks of vinyl frenzy and probably won’t, thanks to the format’s inherent fragility. Chipped and cracked plastic jewel cases and potentially fatally scratched discs will never hold the aura of a crackly slab of second-hand vinyl and the scuffed majesty of a gatefold sleeve.

Nevertheless, second-hand CDs remain cheap and widely available, while most modern artists worth their salt still issue them, particularly via sites like Bandcamp. Treated well, a CD still offers music quality well in excess of all but the highest resolution streaming services. The format is also a window into the dying art of album curation, as well as a chance to experience music before the loudness wars and endless remasters.

CDs are a welcome time capsule, a singular point of focus in a world hell-bent on distraction. Here – adding to our previous pick of standard-sized CD players – are six contemporary compact CD players that’ll take you back to the dawn of the digital age.

Fosi Audio Merak

First up, the Merak from Fosi Audio. Although ultra-compact in the same vein as the best portable players of the past, the Merak is actually designed for desktop use. The free-moving transparent lid and prominent volume slider definitely aren’t designed for use on the go, quite apart from the lack of onboard battery.

The aluminium device has a slim OLED screen and draws power from USB-C, either a dedicated charger or via a laptop or PC. Output is via headphones, line output or optical and there’s a one-touch ripping function that translates a CD’s content to a USB thumb drive.

Fosi Audio Merak, $139.99, FosiAudio.com

Beams Hill

For a stripped-back budget option, consider the Hill player from cultish Japanese retailer Beams. Costing barely more than a modern box set, the Hill is a true portable player that gobbles AA batteries, abhors Bluetooth, has an old-school LCD display and measures little more than the disc contained within.

The semi-transparent lozenge-shape body comes in either orange or blue and Beams also throws in a pair of (very cheap) wired earbuds (with caveats about their sound quality). Unashamedly nostalgic but also potentially rather fragile, it’s the kind of device that could spread the CD love to younger generations.

Beams Records Hill Portable CD Player, ¥7,590, Beams.co.jp

FiiO DM15 R2R

Guangzhou-based FiiO has quietly become a key player in portable audio, from MP3 players to CD-dedicated models. Its most recent portable compact disc player is the DM15 R2R, which is rich in features with a stylish design. In addition to regular CD playback, the DM15 includes an onboard digital audio convertor and headphone amp for processing audio from a phone or laptop.

The battery life offers around seven hours of regular playback, wired and Bluetooth headphone support is offered and there’s also the ability to rip CDs (albeit to WAV format only) direct to a connected PC (although enthusiasts will know that software options are usually best for this kind of thing). Available in silver, red, black, and white, there’s also an optional case and shoulder strap.

FiiO DM15 R2R, £249 / $249 / €269.00, FiiO.eu, Amazon.co.uk

Shanling EC Play

Shanling is another Chinese manufacturer muscling in on the CD revival. The company’s newest compact is the EC Play, which joins the EC Zero T and a number of desktop players in its burgeoning range. Another feature-rich portable, this time with 12 hours of playback onboard, the EC Play is a chunky aluminium square available in Feather Green, Onyx Black and Moonlight Silver finishes.

In addition to playing back regular CDs, the EC Play also supports CD-R and CD-RW formats, with Bluetooth 6.0 wireless headphone out in addition to 3.5mm and 4.4mm headphone jacks. The player also has a high-quality SPDIF digital output for pairing with a hi-fi system.

Shanling EC Play, $199 / €220 / £209.99, AdvancedMp3players.co.uk, En.Shanling.com

xDuoo CDM-10

A quirky pairing of technologies old and new, xDuoo’s CDM-10 is intended as a desktop player. Although there’s a seven-hour battery on board, it weighs in at nearly a kilogram, thanks to the integration of tube amplification.

This adds another layer of warmth and character to the playback, although there’s also a digital audio convertor onboard as well. The CDM-10 offers a plethora of wired outputs (but no Bluetooth), with a black aluminium aesthetic that evokes the classic Sony Professional Walkman.

xDuoo CDM-10, $429, xDuoo.com and £429 at Amazon

YBA Design One

The YBA Design One offers SACD (Super Audio CD) compatibility, the higher quality yet largely overlooked successor to the original CD format. The French company, set up by engineer Yves Bernard André in 1981, is better known for its component systems.

Design One is the company's first foray into the portable sphere. The player follows the same rigorous aesthetic as YBA’s other products, with five-and-a-half hours of battery playback and two sockets for wired headphones.

YBA Design One, RRP €1,848, information and stockists at YBAhifi.com

Last year, the Madera Fernandez family unveiled their latest countryside coup: twin refuges nestled within an 800-hectare Menorcan playground. Vestige Son Ermità and Vestige Binidufà – 11 rooms each – occupy restored two 18th-century fincas connected by a discreet country lane, offering guests the best of both worlds. Son Ermità opened last summer, crowning a low hilltop with pale sandstone grandeur; Binidufà now completes the picture from the valley below, rooted in red stone, agricultural memory and a slower, earthier register. City dwellers may need a moment to adjust to the silence here – it sits around you, deep and unfamiliar at first, until the estate begins to work its spell.

Wallpaper* checks in at Vestige Binidufà, Menorca

What’s on your doorstep?

At Binidufà, the doorstep is the estate itself: 800 hectares of Menorcan countryside, with dry-stone walls, native woodland, red earth, orchards, Vermell cattle, walking routes, cycling trails and land running down towards wild calas. Guests can move freely between Binidufà and Son Ermità, with the team using electric buggies to shuttle them between valley and hilltop. Beyond the estate, Vestige can arrange encounters with local artisans, farmers and producers, as well as mountain-bike tours, bee and honey experiences, jeep safaris, horse riding and art tours (such as at Hauser & Wirth Menorca).

Who is behind the design?

Binidufà was restored and designed by Vestige Estudio, the in-house studio behind Vestige Collection. Architecture, interiors, landscape and technical development were handled together, overseen by Maria Obdulia Fernández of the owning family. Enrique Motilla led the architectural restoration, Marta Delgado and her team developed the interiors, while Inés Martínez led the landscape design. The studio noted the project drew on an agricultural heritage shaped by ‘a pragmatic relationship with land and water’, which gives the design its backbone.

The gardens, rooms, restaurant and old farm buildings share the same material vocabulary: local limestone, reclaimed wood, limewashed walls, raw plaster, linen, cotton, shaded terraces and thick masonry. The guiding idea was to ‘reinterpret the intelligence of a traditional Menorcan farm rather than recreate it’. Thus, the restoration prioritised what was already there: historic rainwater channels, cisterns and drainage systems were restored and brought back into use; original wellheads, thresholds and doors were repaired and reintroduced.

Much of the craft is local. Menorcan carpenters made wardrobes, doors and built-in seating, while local stonemasons produced bathroom basins and exterior benches from the same limestone found in the estate’s dry-stone walls. Lighting was developed with MC Lighting, while the art and objects mix contemporary works, ceramics and antiques from the owners’ collection.

The room to book

The 11 rooms and suites are spread between the farmhouse and restored agricultural buildings, so each one has its own shape, outlook and relationship to the estate. Some open onto private gardens, others onto terraces or valley views; those in the farmhouse retain a stronger sense of the original building. ‘Rather than creating a hierarchy of rooms,’ says Vestige Estudio, ‘the design celebrates the individuality of the estate.’

Bespoke timber furniture, handcrafted joinery, limestone details, linen and cotton textiles keep the mood rooted in the landscape. The north-west of Menorca has a tougher, moodier beauty, and Binidufà reflects that. Rowse amenities add a crisp botanical note in the bathrooms. Book the Terrace Suite, set in the main building close to the restaurant – useful for breakfast, nightcaps and the short, happy journey back after dinner. At 70 sq m, it has a master bedroom opening onto a terrace, a generous living area with a sofa bed for a third guest, and a large bathroom made for long soaks beneath a skylight.

Staying for drinks and dinner?

Mesura is Binidufà’s plant-led restaurant, shaded by trees and looking across the gardens and pool towards the valley. The menu uses vegetables, herbs, grains, dairy and eggs from local farmers and the estate’s own orchard, with Middle Eastern herbs and spices nodding to the property’s Arabic origins. Some dishes can be adapted with fish or meat on request. Vestige Estudio frames Mesura as ‘a natural continuation of Binidufà’s history as a working estate’, which feels right.

Raynaud Limoges nesting bowls arrive with olive oil from Son Felip, butter and salt, which is exceptionally followed by the tomato and cucumber starter, finely chopped, bright and lightly pickled. The signature dish is a vegetable tagine with fennel, pumpkin, green olives, and dried fruit. At the pool, the offering relaxes into salads, sandwiches and ice cream, with fresh lemonade brought on arrival. Executive chef Joan Bagur also oversees Brisa at Son Ermità, where French-inflected Menorcan cooking leans into crudos, seafood and seasonal vegetables.

Where to switch off

The pool is one of Binidufà’s best assets: simple, open to the valley. There is also a yoga deck set in woodland shade, massages using locally infused oils, and access to Son Ermità’s wellness facilities, including a gym built into the hillside with a full-height window looking across fields, coastline and rocky islets. Guests can also walk, hike, e-bike, picnic under trees or make for the calas (worth the trek). Vestige Estudio describes Binidufà and Son Ermità as ‘two very different ways to experience the same remarkable landscape’: one rural and intimate, the other elevated and expansive. The best stay makes use of both.

The verdict

The buzz of Ibiza has, thankfully, not reached this corner of Menorca. Set within a vast private estate on the island’s northern coast, where Menorquina (also known as ‘Vermella’) cattle graze and the countryside still has room to breathe, Vestige Binidufà preserves the bucolic side of the Balearics. What else can a guest ask for?

Vestige Binidufà is located at Diseminado Binideufa, 18, 07750, Illes Balears, Spain. Rates: from €650 per night for two, including breakfast.

What happens when Burgundy winemaking meets Japanese brewing traditions? Yukiguma is the answer: a sake that sparks a flavourful cross-cultural conversation, and brings a shot of design to hospitality.

Brewed at the foot of Mount Ikoma in the Osaka Province, Yukiguma was founded by winemaker Nathalie Perrodo. Her approach to wine is innovative, and the same applies to her new sake, which nods to the traditions of Japanese brewing techniques, and uses pure water sourced from the surrounding Ikoma mountains (which makes up around 80 per cent of the sake’s main body).

It was Perrodo’s background in French wine which drew her towards sake, as she tells Wallpaper*: ‘I grew up with a deep respect for terroir, craftsmanship and the idea that what we drink can express both a place and a culture. But what has always fascinated me even more than the drink itself is what happens around it. Some of my happiest memories are of family gathered around a table, where a bottle became the beginning of a conversation, a celebration, or simply a moment shared.

‘Sake had fascinated me for many years because I saw so many parallels with the world of fine wine, yet it remained a completely different discipline for me to explore. With my French-Asian heritage, there was also something deeply personal about bringing these two worlds together.’

Yukiguma is brewed at the Daimon Brewery, which was established in 1826. Located in the ancestral hunting grounds of a Japanese imperial family, the brewery focuses on small-scale production – ideal for Yukiguma’s small batch of only 5,000 bottles produced per year.

Master maker Yasutaka Daimon, oversees the operation. Perrodo and Daimon, both avid travellers with a shared openness to the world, found kinship rooted in their shared values and eye for craftsmanship. Perrodo reflects, ‘Meeting Daimon San in Osaka was the turning point. We shared the same respect for tradition, but also the desire to create something contemporary.’

Yukiguma means ‘snow bear’ and the drink is made with 100 per cent Yamada Nishiki rice from Hyōgo. However, it is the pure spring water from the Ikoma Mountains that adds a special touch. ‘Pure spring water is a rare yet traditional part of Yukiguma's identity. Today, only around 4 per cent of Japanese breweries use spring water, and Daimon Brewery is fortunate to have its own natural spring source in the Kansai region. The water has a neutral yet unique profile, providing a clean foundation that allows the brewery to focus on the fermentation rather than the water imposing a strong flavour of its own,’ explains Perrodo.

It is this neutrality that allows the sake to ferment slowly, as Perrodo continues to explain: ‘Rather than being defined simply as sweet or dry, it’s designed to have a balanced, food-friendly character that can be paired to taste and reflect the diverse culinary traditions of Osaka, Kyoto and Nara.’

As with wine, tasting sake sparks sensory descriptors. Summing up Yukiguma’s flavours, she says: ‘Persimmon describes the softer, ripe fruit quality: subtly honeyed, rounded and gently sweet rather than sharply acidic. Mangosteen captures a more delicate tropical character: floral, lightly creamy and sweet-tart. Lychee communicates the sake’s lifted perfume and fresh, aromatic quality.’

Yukiguma is created to surprise, to encourage discovery. Says Perrodo, ‘It is an opportunity not only to unite two cultures, but to create something that people would remember, not simply for how it tasted, but for the moments it accompanied.’

Yukiguma can be enjoyed neat, over ice, or in a variety of cocktails, including its signature Yuki Blossom:

Yuki Blossom
35ml Suntory Toki Whisky
35ml Yukiguma
10ml Peach liqueur
10ml Muyu Jasmine Verte
10ml Green Tea & Honey Mix
Stir and strain over a clear ice cube in a Metropolitan Rock

Yukiguma is available for purchase for £120 at marlo.wine.com

Shenzhen has never been about the past – and in the new Shenzhen Bay Culture Square, set in a city younger than many of its inhabitants, there is a delicious irony in the project presenting itself as even remotely ‘ancient’. It is an irony that deepens when, viewed against the International Style glass towers of the Houhai financial district in the background, it is also the most futuristic building around.

So far, Shenzhen’s story has been vertical, both in its architecture and its ambition. It is a glittering arc of towers, totems of speed and economic might in the city where modern China first opened to the world.

Discover the new Shenzhen Bay Culture Square by MAD

Shenzhen is no longer the world’s factory and, edging away from its second coming as China’s Silicon Valley, it seeks to become a cultural powerhouse in the emerging Greater Bay Area, a sprawling metroplex of 11 cities and nearly 90 million residents whose economy rivals that of several major nations.

A hop and a skip from the AI museum being built by Tencent (Shenzhen is still home to tech giants like Huawei and BYD), the latest project by Beijing studio MAD, the 18.8-hectare Shenzhen Bay Culture Square, falls squarely into that new ambition.

Located on the western waterfront, the vast mixed-use cultural complex houses museums, performance spaces, shops, and public amenities beneath a series of flowing forms that rise and fall like topography. Less an object inserted into the skyline than a landscape, it is designed to evoke the appearance of rocks emerging from receding water.

It is the latest, and perhaps most complete, expression of MAD founder Ma Yansong’s vision of the (re)integration of nature and urban life, which he has explored in various forms for the last two decades under the rubric of the ‘Shanshui City’ – an 'idealised Chinese worldview' that proposes an urban space where residents can seek refuge in nature and sites that appear like they have always been there – an 'ancient future'.

MAD’s early work exudes a science-fictional quality. That sense of theatre remains in the curving confines of the Shenzhen Bay Culture Square, where spaces are linked by courtyards, organic openings and elegant ranks of cantilevered escalators. The echoing exhibition hall at the top of the northern pavilion, for example, is a work of such breathtaking dimensions that its low-lit simplicity is almost religious in nature. Elsewhere, the brilliantly lit lecture theatre that materialises at the end of a warm, winding corridor of wood is instantly reminiscent of that all-white room at the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

But there is also a new maturity here. The studio’s characteristic mastery of movement is cleverly expressed in the shifting orientation of the stonework, small blocks that not only make possible the cladding of these mathematically complex forms but discreetly disguise their monumentality. But where previous projects such as Mississauga’s Absolute Towers or the Harbin Opera House verged on the alien, their sculptural, flowing forms a rude salute to the rectilinear logic of the modern city, the soft curves of Shenzhen Bay Culture Square read more as an invitation.

Designed as a link between city and sea, it is not simply a monument but rather a piece of public infrastructure. It is not an object to be admired but instead seeks to choreograph public life, drawing visitors onto its roofs and terraces and down to the waterfront.

This dedication to the public realm reflects Shenzhen’s latest phase as a city moving beyond building 21st-century infrastructure to building memory. It also speaks to China’s contemporary cultural ambitions, where flagship public buildings are increasingly required to offer more than high-tech galleries or auditoria and are expected to become destinations, landmarks, and pieces of urban theatre, capable of projecting national confidence both domestically and internationally.

Yet perhaps the most striking aspect of the project is that, despite its power and scale, it does not seek to dominate its surroundings. Instead, and in what may be its most radical gesture, it attempts to dissolve into them.

In this city defined by verticality, MAD has produced something that invites residents not to look up, but to wander across, around, and through.

i-mad.com

In a new Wallpaper* summer series, architect Carlo Ratti explores Italy through the ordinary objects that define daily life. Meet the lifeguard's uniform through the eyes of the design critic

Carlo Ratti on the lifeguard's uniform

For one hundred and fifty-five years, the 'Società Nazionale di Salvamento,' or National Lifesaving Society, has set the guidelines for Italy’s lifeguards. Let us examine them through the eyes of a design critic. First, Italian lifeguards are an essential safeguard. According to estimates, every summer they save tens of thousands of people from drowning: extraordinary numbers that transform what could be a tragic seasonal tally into infinite safe returns home.

But they are also a visual landmark. Let’s forget about Olympic neoprene suits signed by Giorgio Armani! The red tank top – often faded by sun and salt – is, from June to September, a visual anchor planted along Italy’s 8,000-km-long coastline. It is a true piece of living architecture that deserves a few lines of critical attention.

Let us begin with its origins. The International Life Saving Federation recommends yellow for the upper half of lifeguard uniforms and red for the trunks below. Australia and Britain have turned this guideline into a masterpiece of Anglo-Saxon standardisation: identical uniforms, defined materials, strict codes, an almost military aesthetic. From Sydney to St Ives, the lifeguard sports a walkie-talkie, a cap, technical sunglasses and zinc oxide on the nose.

Italy, by contrast, with the nonchalance of a country that treats international guidelines as suggestions rather than obligations, continues to dress its lifeguards in deep red, from the neck down to mid-thigh. It is the same red as Tinder, the world’s most downloaded dating app.

On the beach, salvation wears the colour of desire – as Baywatch also taught us. In a country that gave the world Valentino red and Ferrari red, the lifeguard’s tank top belongs to a similar chromatic dynasty, even when bleached by the sun.

The garment is equally defined by freedom. Apart from the identifying lettering, which must be clearly legible on both front and back, Italian regulations specify very little. The design is shaped precisely by this absence of rules.

The uniform thus becomes a blank canvas for individual vanity: low-cut tank tops, salt-faded T-shirts, vintage shorts and movie-star sunglasses. It is not a dogma, but a fashion statement – a uniform worn almost like a trophy which, between the 1970s and the 1980s, from the Riviera Romagnola to the beaches of Versilia, fuelled Italian erotic comedy and the dreams of Northern European tourists.

The lifeguard’s outfit reveals a fundamental tension in every human project: the balance between top-down codification and bottom-up freedom. These are precisely the mechanisms that Bernard Rudofsky placed at the centre of his celebrated twentieth-century studies on vernacular architecture, culminating in the iconic exhibition Architecture Without Architects at MoMA in New York (1964). Again and again, a delicate balance between rules and freedom produces the most fascinating and attractive designs.

So, despite modest pay, exhausting shifts and the inevitable sunburn (an occupational hazard, one might say!), for thousands of Italian eighteen-year-olds the lifeguard certification exam remains an essential rite of passage.

It is an opportunity to combine responsibility and vanity. And, through their uniform, to become the unexpected designers of Italy’s seaside landscape.

About 'Objectify' – a summer series from Italy by Carlo Ratti

Italy’s design canon has been told many times. The Bialetti moka pot, the Vespa, the Fiat 500, the Arco floor lamp: you know the list, and so does every airport bookshop and first-year design student. This column will discuss, poke, investigate, prod, ridicule and beatify the less glamorous Italian objects. They are the ones you ought to know, so that when you visit Italy, or spot apparitions of it on a friend’s social media, you can smugly point out: ‘Did you know the mosquito coil is a masterpiece of Italian design? The condom? The motorway toll transponder?’ Objects so ordinary that Italians walk past them, or handle them every day, without registering that someone, with a mellifluous surname, designed them.

Proust wrote a seven-volume novel because a small cake dipped in tea, the madeleine, unlocked an involuntary flood of memory. For followers of the Italian version of this column, published weekly in Il Sole 24 Ore, the nation’s favourite Sunday read, perhaps these objects will have a similar effect. For you, anglophone readers peering at this somewhere between Rummidge and Euforia, they offer something else: beach conversation topics, an eye trained on unexpected places, and perhaps a few new madeleines for when you visit the peninsula yourself. After all, objects are never just objects. As the great Milanese designer Achille Castiglioni of Arco-floor-lamp fame once declared: ‘objects should keep us company’. Especially during this scorching summer.

carlorattiassociati.com