HRH The Prince of Wales and Sir Jony Ive’s Terra Carta Design Lab has announced the 20 finalists chosen to develop design-led solutions to the climate crisis. Launched in July 2021, the Terra Carta Design Lab was spearheaded by Prince Charles and Jony Ive in collaboration with the Royal College of Art (RCA). Each shortlisted team will be expected to further develop their proposals and submit them to the Terra Carta Design Lab Grand Jury in spring 2022, after which four winning teams will be offered the opportunity to be mentored by Jony Ive and introduced to the industry leads of the Sustainable Markets Initiative, as well as receiving financial support. 

’The Design Lab is a visionary and imaginative way of helping address the increasingly urgent climate crisis – the greatest design challenge we face,’ says Ive. ‘This work demonstrates the ingenuity and creative brilliance of RCA students, and I am so very excited to see these concepts develop.’

Terra Carta Design Lab finalists

The 20 shortlisted projects were selected based on innovation, technical feasibility, potential for impact, as well as their alignment with one of the ten themes of the Terra Carta – energy in industry and buildings; natural capital, including agriculture, land use, forestry and oceans; mobility and road transport; fashion and textiles; health systems; technology; waste; plastic, chemicals and petrochemicals; aviation; and shipping. 

The shortlist includes Zelp, an innovative device worn by cattle to reduce methane emissions; the Resting Reef, an eco-friendly funeral service that aims to regenerate marine biodiversity, sequestering carbon and preventing coastal erosion; and the Race for the Arctic, an adventure game that lets players experience climate catastrophe and work to create a more positive future. 

Software-based projects also feature on the shortlist, such as inC2, a platform built on the blockchain that helps companies track, analyse and reduce their supply chain emissions; and Carbon Counting Club, a system that uses blockchain technology to bring trust, transparency and rigour to the carbon offset market.

Among the chosen designs are also a series of material innovations, such as an alternative to plastic that is currently being tested as a solution for the beauty and personal care industry, developed by Shellworks (a former Wallpaper* Re-Made collaborator); and the Notpla Seaweed Paper Project, an alternative to wood-based paper and cardboard with comparable performance and cost. 

‘This shortlist shows the potent alchemy of bringing together the arts and sciences to tackle urgent global challenges,’ comments Paul Thompson, vice-chancellor of the Royal College of Art. ‘The variety and viability of these 20 projects is testament to the talent, innovation and dedication of our students and alumni to solve real world problems affecting communities around the world.’ §

When it comes to iconic bag designs, the ‘Lady Dior’ needs little introduction. Popularised by the most stylish of royal connections, the style was gifted to Princess Diana in 1995 by the First Lady of France, Bernadette Chirac, and its graphic Cannage quilting and ‘D’ ‘I’ ‘O’ ‘R’ top-handle charms have become synonymous with a timeless elegance. 

Dior has continued to pique our interest in the ‘Lady Dior’ with its innovative reinterpretations, thanks to the Dior Lady Art project and its resulting artist-designed handbags. The project has seen a host of renowned international artists bring their own spin to the bag, from Judy Chicago and her iridescent spiral painting-inspired creation, to the oil-painted floral prints of Marc Quinn, ensuring that your accessory is not just a wardrobe classic, it is also a collector’s item.

Now, Dior has announced the sixth iteration of its Dior Lady Art initiative, which sees 12 global artists from, based from Tokyo to Shanghai, Dubai to Dublin, reinterpret the bag using a multidisciplinary range of techniques, from photography to collage to beadwork. On the artistic roster for Dior Lady Art #6 are: Zhang Huan, Genieve Figgis, Gisela Colon, Lina Iris Viktor, Johan Creten, Gigisue, Manal AlDowayan, Antonin Hako, Leonhard Hurzlmeier, Yukimasa Ida, Daisuke Ohba and Li Songsong. 

Lady Dior by Antonin Hako: a bag in flight

We are particularly struck by the design of multidisciplinary French artist Antonin Hako, whose bold and imaginative creations have previously swathed flags and hot air balloons. Inspired by the concept of a bag in flight – drawing on Hako’s longtime interest in perpetual motion – the artist has 3D-printed a design formed from layers of transparent and coloured resin. In his interpretation, the ‘Lady Dior’ takes on an undulating, draped form, as if carved from a block of glass. §

Emerging New York City architecture studio Grzywinski+Pons has just completed its first ground-up new-build project across the pond – welcome to the glorious Buckle Street Studios in London’s Aldgate East neighbourhood. The practice, led by Matthew Grzywinski and Amador Pons, responded with a rigorous site-specific approach, matched with NYC style, to a brief outlining a mixed-use building that would host private and rental apartments, a co-working space, a coffee shop, meeting rooms and a concept store. 

The result is set within a brand new 13-storey building, crafted in warm grey brick, glass blocks and metal exterior cladding (specifically, rusticated, nickel-finished metal panels). Within lies a warm, richly decorated interior, led by a material palette of light-coloured wood, textured plaster and lots of luxurious, tactile fabrics. The young studio designed everything, from the building shell to the interiors and even some of the bespoke furniture and fittings. 

Buckle Street Studios by Grzywinski+Pons

In formulating their volumes, context was critical, the two principals explain: ‘The urban infill site is part of a dense and varied assemblage of buildings in both scale and style. Low-rise heritage structures sit directly adjacent to contemporary high-rises.

‘During the planning process, we worked alongside the municipal authorities to ensure our design fulfilled the [intended] role of architectural intermediary, both in mass and articulation. Cognisant of our responsibility to consider the larger urban context of our site, we specified materials and defined our formal language to temper the architectonic jump from the smaller historic buildings to more recent tall developments.’ 

The distinctive crown of the building – a nod perhaps to historical skyscrapers in the Big Apple – offers not only a visual punchline to the composition, but also crafts a luminous and warm, contemporary residential space inside, which glows and shimmers at night. An honesty in materials – what you see is what you get – continues inside, where a harder, more geometric exterior is softened by the use of timber and fabrics throughout. This environment can be glimpsed from outside, through large openings on the ground level that look through to the communal areas of the building. 

‘Equal parts gallery, lounge, coffee shop, retail concept and living room, the space beckons to the street and is as welcoming as it is inscrutable. It is our hope that passers-by will feel compelled to come inside to further discern what, exactly, it is, and then feel free to get comfortable and stay a while,’ say the architects.

A mix of similarly organic materials and neutral and natural colours is found in the apartments, which are mostly located on the upper levels. This bolsters the project’s inviting overall feel; achieving this across both private and public areas is an approach that defines the design. §

The worlds of jazz music and visual art have long been entwined. From Mondrian to Matisse, Pollock to Basquiat, many artists have been enchanted by this concoction of rhythm, improvisation and energy. 

Since 1967 – when the likes of Miles Davis, Nina Simone and Ella Fitzgerald ruled the airwaves – the Montreux Jazz Festival has blended these worlds, offering visual artists free rein over the creation of its official poster.

A history of Montreux Jazz Festival posters

Early years saw icons of 20th-century art leave their mark (although it was a notably male line-up). Among them were Milton Glaser, Shigeo Fukuda, and Max Bill. Keith Haring produced a trio of posters in 1983 and another in collaboration with Andy Warhol three years later. In 1995 David Bowie stepped up to the plate. More recently – as the festival has broadened its musical remit to the likes Muse, Radiohead, Kendrick Lamar, Pharrell Williams, Ed Sheeran, Alicia Keys, Adele, Lady Gaga – it has welcomed contemporary art takeovers from John Armleder, Julian Opie, Sylvie Fleury, Christian Marclay, and JR. 

Though the Lake Geneva event was cancelled for the first time in 2020, the festival didn’t let something like coronavirus get in the way of its zest for creativity. Organisers instead commissioned artists to create original artworks in response to the apt theme of ‘Silent Shores’. Among them were illustrator Malika Favre, artist and Gucci collaborator Ignasi Monreal, and graphic designer Yoann Lemoine, who also performs as a singer-songwriter under the alias Woodkid. Montreux Jazz Festival posters are available to purchase as editions through the festival’s website. 

For the festival’s 56th edition – which runs 1 – 16 July 2022 and will include performances by Lionel Richie – the responsibility of capturing the festival’s vibrancy in visual form has fallen on the shoulders of French artist Camille Walala. Occupying a space between Constructivism, Pop Art and Memphis, Walala is well known for explosive, graphic work that has encompassed full-façade murals, 3D installations, interiors, set design and brand collaborations. For her digitally created poster, Walala has opted for textured, confetti-like patterns that meet with bold-coloured geometric shapes and black and white stripes, the latter referencing piano keys. 

‘For the festival poster, I wanted to convey movement and rhythm with dancing shapes and a wide variety of colours,’ says Walala. ‘I have several notebooks full of various patterns and motifs that form the basis of my visual vocabulary. Like a piece of music, I use these different contrasting elements to find a balance, a harmony.’ §

The irreverent minds behind ToiletPaper – artist Maurizio Cattelan and photographer Pierpaolo Ferrari – are applying their brand of vibrant surrealism to beauty with the launch of its new line of bath and body products. ‘When we founded ToiletPaper, ten years ago, both Pierpaolo and I wanted to get out of our areas of reference – art and photography – to create a space that was completely free from any constraints,’ says Cattelan of what began as a picture-led magazine. 

‘The search for this freedom, which at first we thought was only our personal need, over time has instead encountered – beyond our forecasts – other worlds, even apparently very distant from ours, giving rise to contaminations that are often unexpected for us too.’ 

Introducing ToiletPaper Beauty

The magazine’s latest ‘contamination’ sees the Cattelan and Ferrari collaborating with La Bottega, an Italian manufacturer of cosmetic products for luxury hotels, on a range of haircare, hand and body soaps, scrubs, lotions and oils. Speaking about the collaboration, La Bottega’s president Tommaso Pacini says, ‘to embrace this challenge – which led us outside the world of hotels – we decided to join forces with a partner with whom we could naturally share this innovative energy.

‘The collaboration with Maurizio and Pierpaolo has allowed us to fully express our industry-leader know-how on fragrances and skincare, whilst at the same time creating a collection that contaminates the world of beauty with irony and fun,’ he adds.

With typical ToiletPaper flair, all of the products feature bold, irreverent graphics, such as an image of saucy spaghetti on a soap bottle and a playing card wedged between butt cheeks on a home fragrance spray. The scents for each product have been developed by drinks mixologist Oscar Quagliarini, in a punchy take on typical beauty line fragrances. 

‘[Our] aesthetic is dreamlike and visionary, in a certain sense the exact opposite of what is usually found in beauty, which certainly prefers a more minimal mood,’ says Ferrari. ‘In our images, we often find a world in which reality is subverted, ambiguous and alienating. This is the approach that we also wanted to bring to this collaboration and which is expressed both in the products and in the packaging.’ 

‘The will with La Bottega was to create a kind of aesthetic short circuit that immediately hit the public and made ToiletPaper Beauty become something extremely different.’ §

There is something brutal, modest and pure about St John Chrysostom Church in Peckham, says designer Max Lamb, who has created a new altar, sanctuary floor, altar candleholders and a Paschal candleholder for the modernist Anglican church in south London. ‘It’s not adorned with a lot of decorations or carvings as you would see in other churches,’ he adds.

Completed in 1966 and replacing two earlier parish churches that had been bombed in the Second World War, St John Chrysostom has a slanting copper roof, a sawn softwood ceiling and a tower feature above the sanctuary that provides dramatic indirect lighting to the space below. ‘When you’re in the congregation looking at the altar, you don’t see any windows and can’t see where the light is coming from,’ says Lamb. ‘So it creates this diagonal shaft of light which makes for some spectacular effects and shadows.’

Commissioned by the church on behalf of the Diocese of Southwark and produced by art curator and producer Aldo Rinaldi, the project saw Lamb respond to the stark beauty of the building’s architecture and the simplicity of its material palette by keeping his offerings in the same sober but poetic register and sticking to similar materials.

He was keen for the additional elements to have presence, however. ‘When I first visited the church, the original altar was made of brick and wood and the effect of the brick altar against a brick wall backdrop meant it was almost invisible.’ Lamb opted instead for Portland stone for the altar and the candleholders, which not only contrasts well with the surroundings but is also a nod to the fact that one of the previous churches on the site – St Jude’s – had been built out of Portland stone. ‘One of the stone columns from the site was retained and turned into the baptismal font,’ says Lamb. Two other small and unusual elements made out of the same limestone can be found in the church: a cantilevered seat behind the altar and a wall plaque just above it.

The altar is composed of four slabs of Portland stone held together using slot joints and a fifth slab inserted within the four walls. With its cross motifs in the four corners where the legs meet, and its recessed base designed so the parish priest can stand closer to the altar, the finished object looks imposing but has an appealing floating quality despite its weight.

The two candleholders are made of the same sedimentary stone and are cylindrical in shape, while the imposing Paschal candleholder is also cylindrical and made of Portland stone but is quite a bit taller (1.35m) and features a reclaimed teak base for stability that neatly repeats the cross motif of the altar.  

The last part of the church Lamb tackled was the stepped, raised sanctuary floor that had been covered in cork and was in a state of disrepair. ‘I am generally very pro cork, but I decided that it was another foreign element in this instance, in that it wasn’t a material that was present elsewhere, so my proposal was not to add something new here but to remove the old and polish the concrete beneath it until it looked honed.’

The new-old floor complements existing concrete elements in the church, such as the original coloured glass and concrete windows designed by Susan Johnson and the large concrete base for the organ pipes. The result, enhanced by highly effective natural and artificial lighting (courtesy of a recent renovation), is a quietly dramatic, uplifting and meditative space with the sculptural altar and candleholders at its heart. § 
 

The first major project to be completed by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners since the death of its founder, Richard Rogers, late last year, the Aile Est (East Wing) at Geneva Airport is a monumental new addition to the Swiss facility. RSHP worked closely with the Jacques Bugna architecture studio in Geneva, as well as the engineering offices Ingérop in Paris and T-Ingénierie in Geneva to steer this project to completion, some ten years after it was originally conceived. 

Superficially, this is a building that’s all about colour, or at least that’s what passengers will perceive. Just like the practice’s Terminal 4 at Madrid’s Barajas Airport, with its rhythmically shifting hues, the new East Wing uses colour as a means of subdividing and enlivening the vast space.

Behind the scenes, there is an awful lot more going on. For a start, the building is designed to be energy positive, a hugely ambitious goal given the size of the space and its 20,000 sq m of façades. In addition, the 520m-long building contains 7,000 tonnes of steel. 

All this structure is put to good use. The terminal has a parallelogram-shaped cross section that is bisected by the inverted pyramid forms of the mighty steel frame, which elevates it up off the ground, as well as supporting both floors and the roof. Up here you’ll find over 7,000 sq m of photovoltaics, which are paired with 110 geothermal piles that plunge down to 300m below the ground to source thermal energy.

Those expansive windows are triple glazed, with shutters for additional solar shading. The terminal will eventually tap into the existing GeniLac hydrothermal system, which uses the waters of Lake Geneva to heat and cool the city’s buildings. 

All that space serves six aircraft stands, and represents a major upgrade on facilities that were initially installed as a temporary measure built to accommodate the then relatively new Boeing 747. Since the Geneva project was originally conceived, the Jumbo’s natural successor, the A380, entered and left production, and the aviation market endured a 60 per cent market dip due to the pandemic.

Nevertheless, the new building still made economic and environmental sense for the airport. 

Each hour, there’s room for 2,800 passengers to leave and 3,000 to arrive, their journeys guided by the colour-coded elements.

The terminal’s steel frame and structural elements are painted in two shades of grey, pairing with the natural stone flooring and the light flooding in through the vast windows to minimise the need for artificial illumination. Each 80m module is then given a different unifying colour for the seating and ceiling elements. 

The project broke ground in 2012, starting with the construction of the geothermal piles. This was followed by the construction of a new road tunnel and technical basements, then the demolition and relocation of existing services before the main new East Wing jetty could be built and fitted out.

The latter process ran from April 2017 to July 2021, during which time the airport had to remain operational, a major logistical challenge for the design and construction teams. 

Finally, there is the view. Raised up above the tarmac, the East Wing not only gives passengers an impressive view of their aircraft, but showcases the Jura Mountains in the north, welcoming visitors to Switzerland’s spectacular landscape. §

Chanel is celebrating the 90th anniversary of the ‘Bijoux de Diamants’ collection with the ‘Allure Céleste’ necklace, which intertwines Gabrielle Chanel’s favourite motifs – the moon, the sun and the star – into one fluid design.

The necklace is the first release from Chanel’s new ‘1932’ collection, which looks back to the maison’s first high jewellery creation ‘Bijoux de Diamants’, released during the Depression as a beacon of hope. That 50-piece collection, in white and yellow diamonds, platinum and yellow gold, drew the brilliance of the night sky in classic diamond cuts and simple silhouettes.

Chanel high jewellery: ‘1932’ collection

This new piece stays faithful to these original design codes, casting round-cut diamonds, an oval sapphire and pear-cut diamonds into simple geometrical forms. True to form, it can be worn in multiple ways, with the halos detaching to become brooches or chic hair jewellery, and the central row of diamonds a bracelet, creating a shorter necklace.

‘The spirit of movement, freedom and flexibility inspired by Mademoiselle Chanel in 1932 is celebrated in the transformable nature of some of the pieces,’ says director of the Chanel Fine Jewellery Creation Studio, Patrice Leguéreau. ‘Elements of the necklaces may be detached and worn as brooches, while the central stones can be used to enrich a ring or earrings. Each jewel is composed of a line of diamonds adorned with a celestial motif. The purity of the lines is specifically designed to enhance the beauty of the stones, especially the diamonds, which have been selected in a variety of shapes to create depth and different graphic rhythms.’

‘The date marks a milestone for Chanel,’ says global head of watches and fine jewellery product marketing, clients and communication at Chanel, Marianne Etchebarne. ‘In November 1932, designer Gabrielle Chanel presented “Bijoux de Diamants”, her one and only high jewellery collection, commissioned by the Diamond Corporation Ltd. Sales of diamonds had been badly hit by the economic crisis of 1929, and they put their trust in the creative talent of Gabrielle Chanel, then at the height of her fame, to revive them.

‘With her contemporaries – the artist Paul Iribe for the design of the jewellery, the poet Jean Cocteau for the collection manifesto, and Robert Bresson (later a celebrated film director) for photographs of the pieces – Gabrielle Chanel created a collection that was unique. It caused a sensation at the time, and still today it remains the cornerstone of our jewellery designs.’ §

In 2017, when Virgil Abloh launched The Ten – a reinterpretation of ten iconic Nike trainer styles, from the Nike ‘Air Force 1 Low’ to the ‘Air VaporMax’, the Nike SNKRS app promptly crashed due to unprecedented online traffic. Abloh’s trainer designs – accented with elements of his idiosyncratic design lexicon, such as collage, ironic typography, asterisks, and industrial and utilitarian embellishments – have become cult collector’s items for sneakerheads and graphic design buffs alike, now more so than ever in the wake of the creative polymath’s passing in November 2021. 

Abloh unveiled a collaboration with Nike and Louis Vuitton as part of the Parisian maison’s S/S 2022 show – an ‘Air Force 1’ silhouette accented with the two brands’ design signatures – and now Sotheby’s has announced an auction of 200 pairs of the sneakers in limited-edition colourways. Bidding on the shoes, which are available in a selection of sizes, opens on 26 January 2022, with a free public exhibition of the styles open at Sotheby’s New York from 19 January – 8 February 2022. 

The calf-leather designs – which celebrate the 40th anniversary of the 1982-designed ‘Air Force 1’ – are emblazoned with Louis Vuitton’s Monogram and Damier prints in rich brown hues. The style also celebrates Abloh’s affection for quotation marks, featuring the word ‘Air’ on its sole. Each pair of the sneakers will be sold with a Louis Vuitton pilot case, a reinterpreted archival design that was also showcased, in hazard orange, at the brand’s S/S 2022 show; the case features Louis Vuitton’s classic S lock closure in white metal finishing and includes a luggage tag in the shape of the Nike Swoosh. 

Profits from the Sotheby’s auction will benefit The Virgil Abloh™ “Post-Modern” Scholarship Fund, which in partnership with the Fashion Scholarship Fund, supports the education of academically promising students of Black, African American, or African descent.

On Thursday 20 January 2022, Louis Vuitton will debut its A/W 2022 collection, at Paris Fashion Week Men’s, featuring the final collection that Abloh designed for the house. §

The best office design begins with a great desk. And the best home office desks feature an ergonomic design, well-considered proportions and the right amount of accessories. Whether you need a compact work surface for a small home study or a large bureau for a more expansive office, these contemporary desks are sleek and elegant, while functionality comes from features such as integrated USB ports and lighting, and discreet storage. 

Conceived by some of the most celebrated creative minds and produced by some of world’s best furniture manufacturers, our selection of office desks includes historical designs, multifunctional workstations, essential furniture pieces and desks in bold colours. 

Browse our pick of best office desks by contemporary makers

An elegant desk with functional details

Name: Romancier desk
Designers: David/Nicolas, for Carpenters Workshop Gallery
Price: on request

In true David/Nicolas fashion, the Romancier desk for Carpenters Workshop Gallery features exquisite details, from the oval purple leather top to the satinated brass hardware, and the ridged  curved legs in amaranto wood doubling as storage cabinets. Combining the functionality of a home office desk (such as the well-considered proportions, discreet front drawers and spacious cupboards on each side) with eclectic elegance, the Romancier desk is available in a limited edition of 8 pieces, and follows a large collection from the Beirut-based duo for the gallery, which demonstrated the studio’s design talent through an extensive collection of furniture made of stone and wood. 

davidandnicolas.com

The exquisitely crafted small desk

Name: Treviso Desk
Designer: Matthew Hilton, for L. Ercolani
Price: from £1885

This compact desk by Matthew Hilton combines a small footprint with intelligent design and honest craftsmanship. Available in ash or walnut, the desk features built-in drawers and a raised shelf, and takes up little space in the room thanks to the oblique legs and small desktop space. The design nods to Ercol’s history and modernist aesthetics, updated by Hilton for the modern workspace. 

The historic office desk design reimagined for the future

Name: ’Petit Bureau en Forme Libre’
Designer: Charlotte Perriand, reissued by Cassina 
Price: on request

Part of Charlotte Perriand’s freeform design experiments, Cassina’s ’Petit Bureau en Forme Libre’ was originally designed for her own Montparnasse studio. Perriand’s pioneering design approach is evident in the curved forms of the home office desk, allowing users to approach the piece according to their needs and allowing flexibility of use. The desk was an innovative design when it was first conceived in 1952, and remains a marvel of furniture design to this day. Made of solid Canaletto Walnut and available in a black version, Perriand’s desk design was discreetly updated with optional space for cables, combining its modernity with an added functionality.

Leather-bound office desk that combines Italian expertise with a Japanese aesthetic

Name: ‘Iren’ desk
Designer: Kensaku Oshiro for Poltrona Frau
Price: £4.150 + VAT

Designer Kensaku Oshiro was inspired by the Japanese concept of ‘iren’ ( indicating ‘an invisible but deliberate continuity between points, lines and characters’ in Japanese calligraphy), a motion that ensures complete harmony between symbols. The resulting office desk is a combination of harmonious lines and practical details. Thanks to a simple movement, the desk’s double surface can overlap to extend the workspace or create storage, and recharging and USB are discreetly concealed in a leather-bound metal box. The gently curved work surface is engineered for a more comfortable arm positioning, and the desk is also available in a wall-mounted version with fitted LED lighting. 

A colourful office desk to create a working alcove at home

Name: ‘Akira’ bureau
Designer: Mathias Hahn for Schönbuch
Price: from €2,950

The ‘Akira’ home office desk by Mathias Hahn for Schönbuch is a bold piece of furniture that is both a functional workstation and a peaceful retreat. The compact surface can be extended to maximise deskspace, and the bureau includes storage compartments that can fit a laptop and notebooks, as well as a smaller case to fit pens and similar items. The desk is a sculptural statement piece whose elegant design is enhanced by the rich palette of matt painted finishes, which can also be customised to create bold, contrasting colour compositions. 

The compact and versatile workstation that adapts to any environment

Name: ‘Touch Down Unit’ workstation
Designer: Studio Klass for UniFor
Price: on request

This versatile office workstation adapts to any environment, from airport lounges and libraries to high-end offices and private studies. It sits on 360-degree swivel castors and offers a rich palette of colours and configurations, and compact storage space, as well as a modular walnut desktop, allowing you to work sitting or standing. A wired version comes with a flip-door hiding USB ports and a rechargeable battery, while wood and leather trays let you display your sharp stationery on the side cabinet (or hide it inside, if you are of a messier disposition).

The organic, modular table

Name: ‘POV’ table
Designer: Kaschkasch for Ton
Price: €7,493,53 (for ‘POV’ table 467)

Designed by Cologne-based studio Kaschkasch, and produced by Czech bentwood specialist Ton, the ‘POV’ collection of tables comes in two heights, three base types and six tabletop shapes, allowing for multiple configurations. The bases are made by joining three bent plywood forms, and the same process is used to produce a stackable conical stool. The collection is available in beech, oak and American walnut, and can be finished in various colours.

The mini office desk addition with space for plants

Name: ‘World of Plants Sideboard’
Designer: USM
Price: £1,373.10 

A design classic since its creation in 1965, the ‘USM Haller’ modular system is branching out with a new range featuring integrated plant pot cut-outs, allowing you to build a towering green wall or simple herb display around your desk. Not only is the contrast between the furniture’s metal grid and soft cascading plants aesthetically pleasing, but the greenery should also help reduce stress and boost creativity. The range includes panels in five sizes and 14 colours, pots in terracotta or basalt, and a discreet watering set.

The compact writing desk that fits anywhere

Name: ‘Harri’ writing desk S
Designer: Peter Fehrentz for More Moebel
Price: from €2,517

This compact writing desk is sleek and elegant while small enough to fit anywhere. Featuring a veneered tabletop available in walnut and oak, the table’s design is defined by a curved edge that results in a slim writing surface and a more generous side for a ribbed drawer and discreet flap for cables. 

The Brompton is a cult urban object, but if you’ve ever hauled one of the company’s elegant folding bikes up a set of Tube station stairs, you’ll be aware of how much serious engineering weighs.

Introduced in 1975 by inventor and company founder Andrew Ritchie, the company has grown slowly and steadily, and now sells around 70,000 bikes a year, in cities as far flung as Shanghai, New York and Singapore, with 15 flagship stores around the world. Urban cycling is still an expanding market, and Brompton’s unique folding mechanism makes it the ultimate and original last mile solution. 

The new Brompton T Line is being touted as the company’s lightest bike ever, with a total weight of 7.45kg. Given that the regular model starts at around 10kg, with electrified versions coming in even heavier, that’s a pretty impressive reduction.

It has taken the London-based company three years to refine the design of the T Line. From the outset, the focus was on shedding weight, which brings a huge number of benefits for the Brompton rider.

To achieve the 37 per cent reduction, the frame is made from titanium, corrosion-resistant, strong, ultra-light and relatively abundant, but also devilishly hard to work with. Yet before the first piece of metal was even cut, the design was fully computer modelled and simulated to optimise every millimetre of the frame’s structure.

Brompton’s team were on a hunt for every last superfluous gram, shaving down the frame and over 150 components without compromising the unique fold mechanism that is at the heart of the bike. 

To achieve the right levels of quality, Brompton is working with Sheffield-based metalworkers CW Fletcher & Sons, specialists with 130 years of experience, including high precision work for the aviation and nuclear industry. Two different types of welding process are used at the dedicated new Brompton Fletcher facility, before the frames come down to London to be kitted out with the all-new componentry.

This includes a compact drivetrain with a carbon crankset, as well as a gear-ratio that’s been specifically tuned for urban riding. Other key details include a steel-armoured carbon seat post – and the T Line is the first bike in the world to have this feature – in order to withstand the wear of daily folding, unfolding, and riding. 

The T Line is designed for riders and their luggage up to 110kg, with the drive system tested extensively in every kind of weather condition. The riding quality has also been carefully considered, with a one-piece carbon fork and wider carbon handlebars. At launch, there will be the T Line One specification – a minimal, single-speed machine designed for the purist – while the T Line Urban features the new compact gear system for more flexibility.

‘The only thing that has been carried over from our classic model is the brake system,’ says Brompton’s chief design and engineering officer, Will Carleysmith, ‘Everything else has been finessed, pared back, and upgraded.’ §

The new Moët Hennessy office in Paris is set in an appropriately glamorous location. The 10,000 sq m space is located on the upper floors of Le Bon Marché, the pioneering department store that was brought to prominence by the skills of Aristide Boucicaut, an entrepreneur who became a partner in the store in 1852.

Boucicaut transformed its fortunes, filling the structurally audacious and architecturally elaborate building with thousands of employees and all manner of goods. Le Bon Marché on rue de Sèvres was one of the first and greatest temples of consumption. It is still going strong, a major revamp having refined and restored the interiors in 2013.

As the ‘MH’ in LVMH, Moët Hennessy has earned the right to occupy this spectacular space within a landmark building that, after all, now belongs to its parent company.

The new Moët Hennessy workspaces were created by Parisian firm Barbarito Bancel Architectes, working in close collaboration with MH’s president, Philippe Schaus. Architects Ivana Barbarito and Benjamin Bancel set up their studio in 2011 and have done extensive work for Dior.

For MH, the main aim was to tailor the space to the company’s ethos, using the spacious attic spaces – once home to dormitories for the store’s female workers – to create a variety of different zones, from formal boardrooms, to meeting rooms, a dedicated bar, and a spectacular main space for working, reading, and conversation. 

The art deco qualities of the original building have been overhauled, restored, and taken to new levels of elegance. From the tall arched windows set into the mansard roof, to the large light features that give the ceilings a flowing, sculptural quality, through to bespoke elements like the boardroom table and marble bar, the new offices evoke the grandeur of a bygone era.

The architects describe the result as an architectural space that ‘touches the sphere of the invisible, relating to individual feelings and favouring wellbeing that goes well beyond immediate comfort’.

Craft and quality are evident in every surface, with bespoke rugs underfoot, above carefully laid parquet flooring and alongside unique pieces of furniture, ceramics and stone finishes, as well as movable steel-framed glass partitions.

‘Moët Hennessy’s values have been a source of inspiration,’ say the architects, going on to list ‘excellence, know-how, craftsmanship, attention to detail, authenticity of materials, nobility without ostentation, the festive spirit, the pleasure of celebrating, the art of living, and the art of tasting’. 

As well as views out across the Parisian skyline, the new offices overlook the department store’s inner courtyard, with its restored original steel structure supplemented by new planting.

Companies are under increasing pressure to lure workers back to their desks, meaning that office design plays a bigger role than ever before. As befits the world of their clients, Barbarito Bancel Architectes have gone all out to embrace richness, charm, and effortless class.§

We’re fascinated by the idea of Smart Writing, and the promise of directly syncing what’s written on the page with the digital world. However, up until now, this mix of paper and screen has remained a niche desire, and although many smart writing systems exist, even the most enthusiastic innovators have found it hard to commit. Moleskine has now unveiled the 2.0 version of the Moleskine Smart Writing System, with a refined pen, more natural-feeling paper, and an expanded set of features.

We spoke to Moleskine’s CEO Daniela Riccardi about the new release, and how the company sees its future in this blended world of digital and analogue. Riccardi joined the company during lockdown after helming several major luxury brands. She spent 25 years at Procter & Gamble, where she eventually headed up the company’s Chinese division, was then CEO of Diesel, followed by a seven-year stint at Baccarat. She was all set to focus on some personal projects when this new opportunity presented itself. 

‘When I was approached by Moleskine it changed my plans,’ Riccardi admits. ‘I had a positive image of the brand and its legendary notebook – a book that is yet to be written.’ Moleskine often gives the impression of being a much older company, perhaps due in part to its long-standing association with the author Bruce Chatwin, who died in 1989. Chatwin romanticised the handmade generic black notebooks he used to buy in Paris, coining the term ‘moleskine’ to describe them, probably in reference to heavy, felt-style moleskin cotton. 

The brand was founded in Italy in 1997 by Francesco Franceschi and Maria Sebregondi, following Sebregondi’s introduction of a high-quality compact journal for Franceschi’s firm Modo & Modo. The Moleskine name was coined and a mythology evoked, effectively transforming the humble blank notebook into a fetish object by ramping up quality and tactility and emphasising the creativity and inspiration that would surely flow during its use. For Riccardi, it is a luxury Italian brand with a bright future, even – perhaps especially – in our digital age. ‘Sketching captures the most powerful part of the human brain,’ she enthuses, the spirit of human creativity. It’s something that is important to preserve. If all that thinking was done directly to digital, we would lose a significant part of our process.’ 

Moleskine Smart Writing System 2.0: new features

Five years after the first version, Smart Writing 2.0 starts with a new pen, one that is more accurate than before, and which comes with a longer-lasting battery and a dedicated, magnetised charging cable. The pen writes as normal in the special encoded notebooks, which have a fine mesh embedded in each page. A sensor within the pen captures the precise motion of the nib in relation to its place on each page, even which page you’re on in the book; just open the app and watch your writing appear within it. 

Other new features include the ability to record notes and play them back, as well as both audio and video from the app. As before, the Notes app will transcribe your handwriting (scrawlers beware), and you can add digital layers of information to existing pages, export images as vectors and even create time-lapse videos of drawings and sketches. The app itself can be a tad eccentric, but integration with cloud services like Google and Microsoft OneDrive add confidence.

Whatever happens, Riccardi remains committed to the physical object. ‘Maria said to me that a Moleskine was always meant to be the start of the creative process,’ Riccardi says. ‘For us, Smart is the future of the brand and 2.0 is just the start.’ Noting that traditional objects such as fountain pens are undergoing a revival, Riccardi emphasises how important it is to achieve the right texture and quality for Moleskine’s encoded paper. The latter makes recycling a bit trickier, she admits, adding that ‘nobody recycles their Moleskines! We have customers who build custom libraries just to keep their notebooks.’ 

The future is one of greater connectivity and openness. ‘Whatever the human brain is capable of doing, we can reproduce it,’ Riccardi says, ‘but we have to connect Moleskine to other apps and systems and make it easy and accessible for everyone. I personally have terrible handwriting, but it’s part of my personality; I just have a need to write things down.’

Version 2.0 is a step on the road to an increasingly seamless system, one that committed jotters and scribblers would be very happy to use on a daily basis. The digital functionality is a welcome bonus that could prove essential – imagine being able to run a text search on an old notebook – but the object itself will always endure. ‘I want the Moleskine to be like an iPhone,’ Riccardi concludes, ‘something that you wouldn’t leave home without.’ §

The San Francisco townhouse, majestically standing in neat rows on the West Coast city’s iconic hills, has a special place in our image of the Golden City. Locally based architecture studio Aidlin Darling Design has now created a modern reinterpretation of the typology – a property called Art House. The project, conceived for a private client and led by founding partner Joshua Aidlin, ‘honours the legacy of stellar craftsmanship within the Bay Area’, explain the architects. Indeed, streamlined design and bespoke details and features abound in this new home.

Art House is located on a south-facing hillside in the Cow Hollow neighbourhood. The front and rear façades each have a distinct personality and serve a different purpose. The street-facing one feels subtler, more opaque and maintains the proportions of the nearby Victorian structures to avoid breaking the street’s rhythm. Yet, as you come round to the back of the site, the rear façade unfolds to reveal four, dramatic, glass-enclosed floors and a domestic interior, which glows when lit at night and opens up to long views of the garden and the cityscape and Bay Area beyond. A common language of artfully poured in-situ concrete, timber cladding and glazed openings unite the two sides. 

The interiors, led by spatial generosity, master craft and those views (which include from the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz Island and the Palace of Fine Arts), create a gently luxurious atmosphere. Double-height living spaces, shaded floor-to-ceiling openings, high-quality materials (such as walnut wood and stainless steel) compose spaces that feel welcoming but also grand – yet still suited for the domestic scale. Different moods are catered to in different areas, from the expansive main living area with its Studio Drift art installation and chandelier, to the slightly more ’compressed’ bedrooms that lead the eye towards the vistas. 

A similar, tailored approach is followed outside. ‘The lowest floor opens up to a landscaped oasis that breaks up into three smaller gardens as the terrain follows the hillside, creating three distinct opportunities within the vicinity for solitude, connection, and relaxation,’ the architects explain. 

Aidlin Darling Design draws on the past and infuses this project with contemporary thought and craft, ensuring the result is a timeless classic. ‘There was an emphatic focus during the design process to create not the 25-year home but the 200-year home — one that is impeccably crafted out of materials that will age gracefully,’ the team says of this take on the San Francisco townhouse. ‘The home was embraced as an unparalleled opportunity to design to all the human senses: not just the visual, but also the tactile, olfactory, and auditory.’ §

Airbnb is on the hunt for a candidate willing to live rent-free in a refurbished house in the Italian village of Sambuca in Sicily. The winning applicant will relocate to Sicily with family or friends for a year, keeping all earnings from their time hosting on Airbnb.

The once-decayed traditional three-storey house has been extensively rethought by Italian architectural firm Studio Didea, which combined local craftsmanship with contemporary design codes in a thoughtful restoration. Modern accents run throughout the interior, from Lambert & Fils and Marset lighting to Cc-tapis rugs, and E15 and MDF Italia furniture. Fixtures and fittings in the kitchen and three bathrooms by Bulthaup, Kos, Smeg, and Zucchetti make a modern foil for original design accents, including the existing tiles, which have been repurposed elsewhere in the house.

Live in this Airbnb rent-free as a host

The opportunity is part of Sambuca’s ‘1 Euro House campaign’, created in 2018 to address concerns over the declining population by promoting cultural heritage and appealing to a younger demographic. The winning applicant is encouraged to get involved in local community life and will be offered the chance to attend a mentorship programme, which will teach Italian and uncover the country’s cultural heritage. Those applying must be keen to host a room in the house for at least a nine-month period.

The successful participant may bring their partner, friend or family to share the experience. ‘The beauty of this campaign is that it gives a second chance not just to an abandoned heritage home in the heart of our village – it’s also a second chance to the person who moves into it,’ says mayor of Sambuca di Sicilia, Leonardo Ciaccio. ‘We see it as a designer makeover for the house and the host. We’re looking for someone who wants to live with the local population and participate in all the important moments of the community, from the grape harvest to olive picking, and we can’t wait to welcome whoever gets selected.’ §

The restored entrance
 

The bedroom before restoration

The restored living room

‘A new French style’ is how Alice B Toklas, member of the Parisian avant-garde, described Balmain when the first collection debuted in 1945. Seventy-five years on, its current creative director, Olivier Rousteing, is carrying on the tradition of innovation. Perhaps fashion’s most impressive Wunderkind – he took the helm of the brand at just 25 years old – Rousteing revitalised the brand by translating traditional couture techniques into a contemporary vernacular.  

Olivier Rousteing on a very French vision

It seems only natural, then, that Rousteing would collaborate with candlemaker Trudon, a company known for its ‘reliance on archives, savoir-faire and legacies as key ingredients in the creation of offerings that are very much of today’, as he puts it.

‘Centuries ago, Trudon concentrated on meeting the needs of the powerful French monarchy and church – but now, with its inventive scents and beautifully presented candles, the company inventively relies on its wealth of knowledge and experience to surprise with new breakthroughs and reimagined offerings that fit perfectly into a 21st-century, modern ambiance,’ adds Rousteing.

The new Balmain-Trudon candle 

The first Balmain-Trudon candle came out last year, but this limited edition features a new container and a new scent, derived from Trudon’s ever-popular ‘Ernesto’ candle. The ‘Ernesto’ is very familiar to Rousteing, who often burns the luxury candles in his home, studio, and even the Balmain flagship. 

For him, ‘there is something a bit spiritual about a candle. I love the tiny bit of a ceremony that is part of setting it out, lighting it and letting its soft light give a new warmth to a space. Somehow, it relaxes me and helps me feel more creative as I work. I guess that feeling should not be all that surprising, knowing that Trudon originally began, centuries ago, creating candles for French cathedrals.’ 

Rousteing worked with the nose behind the ‘Ernesto’ candle, Emilie Bouge, to create a floral, slightly more delicate edition of this classic scent. The original ‘Ernesto’ is inspired by a Havana hotel during the Cuban Revolution, and features a steamy mix of tobacco, cedar and gunpowder. 

‘If Ernesto was incarnated it would be a Cuban rebel like Che Guevara, smoking his cigar with his sleeves rolled up,’ says Julien Pruvost, Creative Director for Trudon. ‘The Balmain version is a feminine [incarnation] of that scent. She wouldn’t smell like tobacco and leather but she would be impregnated with that because she’s around these men. She’s part of the rebellion but carries a deep sensual kind of dark floral notes, like a black rose.’ 

The candle’s striped, red and gold container is a visual complement to Balmain’s fashion collections. As with all Trudon candles, the glass container has been handcrafted in Tuscany and filled with a unique wax formulation perfected over its over 300 year history. Rousteing says, ‘The bold stripes on the glass container reference one of Balmain’s icons: the house’s modern, luxe take on Normandy’s traditional marinière sweater. We’ve played with new takes on the marinière on almost every Balmain Paris Fashion Week runway for the past decade.’ The gold colouring, meanwhile, is ‘a salute to Balmain’s couture origins’. 

Keeping a historic brand relevant 

Ultimately, the new Balmain-Trudon candle is a compelling study in how historic brands innovate and collaborate to stay relevant to a modern audience. Asked about this, Rousteing says: ‘Balmain rests atop an incredible legacy. And, of course, each of our collections builds upon that history, looking to our rich archives for inspiration and relying on skilled artisans, whose savoir-faire is based on centuries of Parisian fashion refinement and learning. But, at the same time, this house could not possibly be more of today. That’s because Balmain has always looked to the power of popular culture, as well as the energy and beauty surrounding us on the avenues and boulevards of Paris, for inspiration.’ 

This constant celebration of new thoughts and new voices is what guarantees that the historic house continues to offer a truly modern and compelling outlook. §

Elliott Puckette’s new show at Kasmin, her ninth with the gallery, occupies a 3,000 sq ft space on 509 West 27th Street, designed by Studio MDA. Afternoon winter light permeates coolly through the 20 or so skylights in the poured concrete ceiling and onto Puckette’s new works, which include paintings of varying sizes, several works on paper, and two sculptures, the last marking a new development for the artist.

Elliott Puckette: a decades-long obsession with the line

Puckette is best known for her abstract line paintings of swirling arcs and meandering squiggles. The Kentucky-born artist has a decades-long obsession with the line, which she describes as having ‘more possibilities than shape or colour’, although it’s neither overtly calligraphic nor directly figurative. ‘I was always interested in graphology – not necessarily what someone was writing but reading into the psychology of how it’s written,’ she discloses, citing artist Henri Michaux’s imaginary alphabets as influential; ‘It’s a kind of asemic writing, open to interpretation.’

Puckette makes all her paintings in the same painstakingly methodical way. Working always by herself, she first preps all her boards (although she will only work on one at a time) with her own recipe of gesso, which blends acrylic with powdered clay kaolin (after developing an allergic reaction to the marble dust used in traditional gesso years ago, she had to create her own). Puckette applies about a dozen layers, letting the gesso dry each time before sanding to a paper-smooth finish. Then ink is washed over the boards – most often dark greys, black, occasionally blues and rich purple. She draws her line with a piece of chalk, fast and freehand, before cutting into the dry inky surface with a razor blade to reveal the white gesso beneath: ‘It’s subtractive,’ she says. 

She then works over the line, making micro crosshatches, shaping its thinness and thickness as she goes. Catch the board’s surface in the right light and you can glimpse the subtle indentation. The line on her white boards is made slightly differently: ‘I put gouache on the ground, then I draw the line and etch it in with a razor blade, and then put ink in the line, so it’s more like an etching.’ The process is arduous and lengthy, but meditative. ‘You really get in the zone. It’s perfect for these times,’ she says. 

Puckette is of course referring to the juddering standstill underscored with the chaotic maelstrom of our recent times. Each work in her New York exhibition possesses freedom and restraint; the fluidity of the line, drawn instinctively, playing against the precision of her minuscule crosshatches. We are all grappling to some degree with losing control, making a graceful submission. Has this sensation become heightened to Puckette? ‘I think daily doubt isn’t such a bad thing,’ she says. ‘There is no certainty in anything, it’s exhausting, the not knowing. But I wouldn’t want a world without doubt.’

While Puckette’s works have an element of chance – ‘a throw of the dice’, as she puts it – her new works evolve this established theme with subtle but distinct differences. Each painting began life as a small-scale maquette of wire, which Puckette twisted and contorted. The line drawn on the board mirrors the form of the maquette and, whereas previously she created a continual ouroboros loop, now she depicts the start and end of the line in her paintings – the start and end of the maquette wire. Each time, she recycles the wire and begins again. ‘I wanted to see if the ephemeral nature would still hold in the sculptures, in something as substantial as bronze. It’s a contradiction that interests me.’

The larger of the two sculptures appears suspended in mid-air. It is made from 117 pieces of individually cast and soldered bronze and created in collaboration with Workshop Art Fabrication foundry in upstate New York. ‘The hardest part was letting go of control, but I knew I had to hand it over to the professionals,’ she says. ‘This was our first and only attempt. There is a giant almanac of soldering instructions explaining which pieces go next to which, and each is numbered so we could see where they all connect.’

Puckette goes to her studio in Dumbo, Brooklyn, every day, the same space she has worked in for over 30 years. ‘It’s part of my routine,’ she says. ‘It’s the space I feel safest. I got it in 1989 when I first graduated from art school. It’s a funky old building, very ramshackle, nothing tweaked about it at all, a bit of old New York.’ 

Now that the show is open, will she take even a day off to recharge? ‘I like to have the motor running all the time, otherwise it can be hard to get going again. I’ve already primed a bunch of panels which are just winking at me in the studio.’ §

Ignae is bringing exciting innovations to vegan skincare, with formulations sustainably sourced from the pristine archipelago of nine volcanic islands known as the Azores. These small islands – geographically distant from many sources of industrial pollution, and home to Marine Protected Areas – remain a bastion of rare natural ingredients and mineral-rich thermal waters. 

For the first time, Ignae is harnessing the unique resources of the islands to create transformative skincare products. The brand is the brainchild of Miguel Pombo, a native of the Azores and an expert in international ingredient manufacturing. With his inherent knowledge of the islands, Pombo was able to identify the ingredients that could be harvested from the area’s ecosystem and optimised to create exceptionally rejuvenating skincare. 

EPC factor complex

Years of research have resulted in the brand’s patent-pending EPC Factor Complex, designed to utilise plant-based liposomes to deliver rejuvenating ingredients deep into the skin’s dermis, where new cells are created. Pombo says, ‘Our EPC Factor is a breakthrough. The fact that our liposomes are plant-based, clean and vegan is super exciting. It’s not easy to stabilise and encapsulate all the ingredients into a delivery vehicle to your dermis.’ 

He adds, ‘An innovative aspect of our proprietary EPC Factor is that [it contains] phospholipids which resemble the ones present in our own cell membranes, thus enhancing the bio-absorption of the encapsulated substances. It is very hard to formulate liposomes with plant and algae extracts, because of their low stability, poor solubility and bioavailability.

‘With our proprietary liposomes, we are able to avoid these common issues affecting liposomal delivery of botanical extracts, harnessing the benefits of this promising technology for skincare.’ 

A revolution in vegan skincare 

The EPC Factor has the potential to be one of the most exciting recent developments in skincare, as one of the few clean and vegan formulations that can deliver to the same degree as most of the celebrated heritage and luxury brands. 

The science behind Ignae has been elevated on a commercial level by the expertise of the brand’s CEO, Claire Chung. A global entrepreneur with two decades of experience in the luxury sector, Chung is perhaps best known as the innovative mind behind the launch of Net-a-Porter China. 

‘We’ve seen the trend in the US market for clean and vegan skincare products,’ says Chung, ‘and we go the next step by using biotechnology to deliver more powerful results with plant-based clean ingredients. We were thinking about how we can bring innovation to a post-pandemic world [and] we concluded that the future of skincare is about leveraging biotech to increase efficacy, sustainability and looking to nature as a solution to regeneration.

‘We want to empower our customers by leveraging the latest technology to help them monitor and track their skin’s transformation,’ she continues. ‘Confident of the transformational impact of our products, the customer can take [our] AI skin analysis and track their own progress as a seamless skin wellness journey with Ignae.’ 

In addition, Chung has channelled her knowledge of luxury spas into a series of treatments that blend elements of holistic wellness traditions from China and India with European techniques. 

All in all, Ignae promises to be a breakthrough in vegan skincare and skincare more generally. If fountain of youth actually exists, perhaps it’s on the Azores – and now it can be on your bathroom shelf too. §

The Los Angeles neighbourhood of West Adams might not have the name recognition as other areas of the city, but the recently opened Alsace LA hotel is adding to the district’s already significant standing. Known for its historic architecture and for being one of the oldest neighbourhoods of Los Angeles, West Adams also boasts a thriving dining scene, a host of unique retail destinations, and is also home to a blossoming art and music scene.

Against this vibrant and energetic backdrop, the 48-room Alsace LA hotel possesses all the hallmarks of a soon-to-be cherished fixture. Developed by CIM Group, the purpose-built hotel was designed by architects NMDA Group, with interiors by Home Studios. Inspired by the gestural curves of the Bauhaus, white oak floors and ceilings are muddled with terracotta plaster, fluted textures, warm wood accents and vintage and custom-designed furniture to create an evocative and sensual atmosphere that captures the eclectic essence of Los Angeles. 

Alsace LA hotel interiors by Home Studios

Guests first enter through a Mediterranean-style portico, where a verdant interior courtyard allows natural light to filter through each of the hotel’s three floors. Guest rooms each boast handcrafted details, with larger rooms accompanied by balconies or terraces, a custom-designed dining table and a bespoke pull-out couch.

Home Studios was responsible for designing many of the in-room elements, including the upholstered headboard panels, the rattan and wood wardrobes and sculptural brass hooks that together transport guests away to another world. 

Home Studios’ residential-style approach to the interior design continues downstairs in the lobby, where a tile mural, produced in collaboration with local artist Lukas Geronimas Giniotis, draws on themes of ancient mosaic art with its figures in repose and abstracted landscape of fauna and classic architecture. Each of the artist’s tile motifs hint at the use of space throughout the hotel’s public spaces: divers appear near the exit to the pool, while figures play near the gym. §

Dior and Technogym have partnered on a new line of workout equipment that is as easy on your eyes as it is tough on your muscles. The limited edition collection includes a treadmill, a workout bench, and an exercise ball enlivened by a distinctly Dior aesthetic, with each of the pieces featuring a polished white base decorated with the Dior star, creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri’s lucky symbol, and the Christian Dior logo bordered by the house’s signature strips. 

Produced in Italy at the Technogym Village, the collection features the ingenious technology and compact design (see our article on the company’s Personal Line) that has made the brand one of the most respected names in sports equipment. The compact treadmill, for instance, features a MyRun console, on top of which users place their tablet to activate a whole range of on-demand running and walking workouts.

The bench is ideal for doing a variety of exercises within a small space, with dumbbells, elastics and knuckles that can be used to perform over 200 different exercises, demonstrated in the brand’s extensive library of on-demand workouts.

The final item in the collection, the ball, is a much more straightforward, but no less effective, piece of equipment that can be used for flexibility, toning and balance.

The collection, both utilitarian and aesthetically appealing, is sure to spur users on to exercise. As Technogym founder Nerio Alessandri says: ‘This shared goal of excellence gives life to a limited series of innovative Technogym products interpreted with Dior’s unique allure. Created to inspire the concept of wellness with new generations, it also offers people the opportunity to live a unique and irresistible experience.’

The Dior and Technogym line will be revealed in a series of pop-up stores for the new Dior Vibe collection, which launched at the Dior cruise 2022 show as a stylistic hybrid between ready-to-wear and streetwear. The line includes sportswear such as leggings and shorts decorated in the maison’s iconic patterns; ‘Dior Tribales’ earbud earrings; and ‘Dior Vibe’ bags that borrow stylistic elements from sneakers. 

The Dior Vibe pop-up is already open at Harrods in London and will open in Beijing, Chengdu, Hong Kong, Seoul, Taipei, Bangkok, Beverly Hills,Tokyo, Paris, Milan, Tokyo, New York and more throughout the next few weeks. §