Wallpaper* is the most extraordinary and unique publication, and during my 16-year stint, there was never a week without adventure. Picking one highlight from so many is tough, but I’ll go for our epic BRIC Nations project, which spanned 2009 to 2012.

Four epic journeys – to Brazil, Russia, India and China – to produce four epic issues. Transferring the majority of the editorial team en masse to report on the cultural and creative explosions behind the economic booms of what were then known as the emerging territories. Setting up pop-up offices in the two major cities of each territory. Observing and absorbing their ways of living and methods of working. Hanging out and mixing it up with the countries’ movers and shakers. Seeing things from their perspective. The mission was always to look out as well as look in.

In 2009, we set up shop in Shanghai and Beijing and produced Made in China (W*123). Next up, 2010 saw us land in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro to be Born in Brazil (W*135). Then in 2011, we found ourselves in Mumbai and Delhi being Reborn in India (W*147). Finally, in 2012, from outposts in St Petersburg and Moscow, we were Reigning in Russia (W*164).

We profiled and collaborated with the leading designers, architects, artists, photographers, chefs, gallerists and cultural entrepreneurs in each of these countries, and reported on emerging and re-emerging and re-energised art, architecture, food, media, fashion and design cultures. We made our pilgrimages to Le Corbusier in Chandigarh and Melnikov in Moscow. We conversed with Oscar Niemeyer in Rio and Ai Weiwei in Beijing. We commissioned the countries’ leading artists to design our front covers and to reveal their favourite recipes for our back page. We made lots of friends… and one or two enemies.

But most importantly – we grew as a team. From senior editors through to juniors and even interns, there was no hierarchy. All went and all rolled up their sleeves. These were life-changing experiences. And most of those juniors and interns went on to run departments at Wallpaper*.

When the project was complete, we wondered, ‘What next?’ How could we fill this BRIC-shaped hole the following year? ‘How about Made on the Moon?’ we joked at the time. Well, perhaps that’s not such a fantasy anymore. Go on Sarah – give Jeff or Elon a call – nobody dare say no to Wallpaper*. And I’ll be an intern! §

Sotheby’s is celebrating Black jewellers with a new exhibition, ‘Brilliant & Black: A Jewellery Renaissance’. The exhibition, currently taking place at Sotheby’s New York (until 26 September 2021), with all pieces available to purchase until 10 October 2021, is the brainchild of jewellery author and editor Melanie Grant, who has curated the first ever selling exhibition dedicated to Black jewellery designers.

The exhibition encompasses an eclectic selection of over 20 jewellers, with the 60 pieces included spanning a range of styles, from traditional to contemporary. Jewellers, including Harwell Godfrey, Jacqueline Rabun, Rashid Johnson, Mateo New York, Almasika, Thelma West, Lola Fenhirst, Lorraine West and Johnny Nelson have each presented pieces available to view in person at Sotheby’s New York galleries or through the Sotheby’s Buy Now online marketplace.

‘I believe we’ve entered a renaissance in Black jewellery design similar to the post-war surge in creativity we experienced in the 1920s when the likes of James Baldwin, Gordon Parks and Harry Belafonte rose up to express a new vision of Blackness through the prism of art,’ comments Grant. ‘Jewellery artists of African descent have been largely ignored in favour of “African inspired” design over the last century, despite the fact that so many of the resources to make jewellery come from the continent.’

For Catherine Sarr of Almasika, the exhibition is a chance to explore each jewellery design in greater depth, and an opportunity to draw connections with audiences. The three pieces she has presented – the ‘Universum’ cuff, ‘Vici’ earrings and ‘Le Cauri Endiamanté’ – subscribe to her sculptural jewellery aesthetic. ‘I design jewellery that connects to larger traditions and significance spanning generations and cultures,’ she says. ‘I am interested in overlapping circles in cultures. It is an honour to have Almasika included amongst so many talented visionaries, Melanie Grant felt this urgency to bring together artists whose aesthetic and vision she felt needed to be discovered by the world.’

‘The events of 2020 have resulted in a cultural shift where Black talent is being acknowledged for its brilliance and jewellery designers for their contribution,’ adds Grant. ‘They have compelling stories to tell.’ §

Matturi

Thelma West

Mateo

Our selection of the latest and greatest, comprehensive coffee machines. These are the devices designed for bean bores and espresso evangelists, all offering the ability to tweak and manipulate your daily intake exactly the way you like it – as the best coffee machines should. All the models below can make a variety of brews starting out with raw beans, from compact countertop coffee makers through to high-end built-in machines.

Small and sleek: Smeg BCC02 

Smeg’s BCC02 is the company’s first foray into bean-to-cup coffee machines. Compact and streamlined, the BCC02 offers a push-button experience with the ability to customise the strength of your brew, and the ability to create ristretto coffee, espressos and americanos, together with frothy milk. The 1.4-litre water reservoir holds enough for six cups. Traditionally, a full-service coffee machine takes up a lot of counter space, but the BCC02 manages to cram everything into a minimal footprint. The brushed aluminium exterior and prominent logo match it up to the company’s other retro-tinged products, and it’s available in four different colours. 

Two for one: Melitta Purista

Another ultra-compact coffee machine, Melitta’s Purista Series 300 boasts twin nozzles for serving up two cups at once, and promises a near silent operation thanks to a ‘super quiet steel cone grinder’. That same component can be adjusted for five different types of grind, and coffee intensity can also be easily varied. The machine incorporates Melitta’s own water filter system for good measure. 

Digital delight: De’Longhi Maestosa 

De’Longhi’s top of the range Maestosa is a sizeable device that brings all the coffee shop trimmings to your home. Operated by a 5in touch screen, the Maestosa promises one-touch operation to serve up a variety of coffee, milky coffee and even hot chocolate drinks. With a black mirrored glass front and a ribbed metal frame, it has all the retro charm of a Soho bistro. 

A history of creating coffee: Gaggia Naviglio

Gaggia is a pioneer in automatic coffee machines, having been set up in 1947 by Giovanni Achille Gaggia to commercialise his innovative high-pressure approach to brewing. The heyday of deco-inspired machines has passed, but the current range runs from the simple Brera all the way to the one-touch Accademia cappuccino maker. For our money, the Naviglio Bean to Cup Coffee Machine is a sweet spot between style and function. 

Glass act: Jura ENA 8

Another compact machine that won’t crowd the countertop, Jura’s new ENA 8 serves up one cup at a time courtesy of its touch screen interface. Ten specialty coffees can be selected on the 2.8in screen and the company has made a special feature of the 1.1-litre water tank, with its crystalline facets. 

Sleek but sensible: Siemens EQ.9

Capable of serving up two drinks at once, the EQ.9 continues Siemens’ tradition of no-nonsense industrial design, with the added benefit of app connectivity and a colourful touchscreen interface. The EQ.9 is for eager entertainers who like the idea of plugging in preferences to the accompanying app and then watching as the machine automatically makes its way through the various orders. 

Dial it in: Sage Barista Express

If you’re not quite ready for espressos conjured up by an app and poured via touchscreen, Sage’s Barista Express is a far more traditionally styled machine. You’ll need to put more initial effort into mastering the arts of grind and pressure, but the end results will no doubt be more satisfying. One for those who savour the ritual of the coffee making experience. 

For the minimal kitchen: Neff N90

Built-in appliances take coffee making to another level. Although they’re best incorporated at the outset of a kitchen remodel, the standard fit and minimal trimmings ensure this high-end coffee machine from Neff will fit into most domestic schemes. The entire unit swings open for maintenance, with a 2.4-litre water tank, and twin nozzles for faster preparation. 

Thinking ahead: Fisher & Paykel Series 9

Fisher & Paykel’s Series 9 is another built-in option, offering 13 different drink options, a self-cleaning system, and the ability to be pre-programmed to deliver a shot of coffee at the same time every day. Available in both black and stainless steel. 

§

‘For the past few months, we’ve been in the grips of an uncontrollable reality,’ say Inès Amorim and Reid Baker – the duo behind Ernest W Baker – at their A/W 2021 collection preview. ‘As business owners, uncertainty, anxiety and stress have been a constant in our lives. It has really forced us to examine what matters and what we want to say.’ 

This sense of not being in control has led them to explore the phenomenon of lucid dreaming, ‘when you’re not in control of what’s happening but you are aware of it’. Since 2016 the pair have been working within the parameters of classic menswear and tailoring; now they’ve added a slight slouch to the sartorial with handmade crochet, cosy faux furs and fuzzy knits. Details that are sharp in their suppleness.  

Ernest W Baker: the juxtaposition of smartness and casual

A/W 2021 reflects a growing ease in fashion that’s pushing an agenda for sloppiness with panache. Pyjamas are styled with a shirt and tie. Organic T-shirts are printed with rose graphics and jeans cut in a 1970s flared shape. A lush robe doubles as a coat. Hand-embroidered chenille track-tops and mohair argyle cardigans add fun.

‘It’s a bit off duty,’ Baker says. ‘It felt inappropriate not to acknowledge what was happening in the world with the collection. It is inspired by last year’s uniform. We wanted to show a new way of doing it – this juxtaposition of the smartness with the casual.’ 

This more laid-back smart is mirrored in the operations of Ernest W Baker too. In 2018 Amorim and Baker relocated to the historic city of Viana do Castelo in northern Portugal, where the Lima river meets the Atlantic Ocean, to be closer to their production. Everything is done within a 30km radius of the studio.

‘Our jobs have changed. We have had to become more flexible with things spinning out of our control,’ they say. ‘If we have to roll with the punches right now, we wanted to build an aesthetic around it.’ §

A historic midcentury Beverly Hills home by Alfred Wilkes has been restored by interior designer Sophie Goineau. Cove Way, a California residence set among leafy grounds, was originally built in 1957 to the era’s modernist architecture traditions. Now, after two years of meticulous research and building works, the home has been brought back to its former glory – with a 21st century twist, while drawing on themes by the great modernists, such as Richard Neutra, Harold Levitt and Mies van der Rohe and a ‘less is more’, minimalist approach. 

Goineau worked on refreshing existing features and opening up the space while maintaining the important overall aesthetic and philosophy of the structure. The house, which spans some 5,000 sq ft and four bedrooms, is composed of an arrangement of straight and curved lines, and glass expanses that open up towards the verdant gardens and swimming pool outside. Pronounced overhangs of a flat roof enhance a vertical feel and elegantly, visually extend the low volumes.

French philosopher Gaston Bachelard and his 1958 book, The Poetics of Space, were strong influences on Goineau as she developed her design. ‘These walls are objects, not just walls,’ she explains. ‘Screen walls filter light, and every day the light changes, creating living experiences. They don’t block anything. They will always be entrouvert, or partially open. Like humans.’

Craft was another key influence in Goineau’s work. The designer employed a variety of rich materials, including warm, brown timbers, coloured terrazzo floor, brass details, bespoke joinery and handmade clay Kolumba bricks designed by Peter Zumthor and Petersen Tegl (originally for the Kolumba art museum in Cologne). Inspirations for specially designed furniture and fittings range from Alexander Girard and the Miller House (in Columbus, Indiana) to Charlotte Perriand and Le Corbusier. Examples include the library’s built-in shelving system. ‘I love designing within a large box,’ says Goineau, ‘and here the concept is throughout the whole house, like sets of Russian dolls.’

Los Angeles modernism meets Beverly Hils living, high craft and fine furniture design traditions, in this private home – a refreshed family space where 20th and 21st architecture and design meet. §

Translating the magic of a fairytale garden into an horological fantasy, while also giving a nod to Christian Dior’s horticultural passions, is this Dior watch, the dreamily indulgent Grand Soir Aquarelle. In this timepiece, the designer’s love for flowers and gardens – in particular, the rose and jasmine plants in his south of France home, Château de la Colle Noire – is translated into a timepiece that will make an elegant alternative to a traditional bouquet. Flowers, seen in every aspect of Dior’s expression, from haute couture embroidery to show sets and men’s clothing, here permeate time itself.

Under the glass blooms a white gold and pink gold flower, its petals studded with round-cut pink sapphires and tinted glass in a play on volume that adds layers of detail to the watch face. Pear-cut and round-cut diamonds drift across a fabric dial that looks to have been daubed with a paintbrush, with the paint blossoming over the face and infusing the white leather watch strap with colour.

Dior watch for bridal elegance

Add this Dior watch to a bridal look for a modern take on matrimonial elegance. For further wedding inspiration, let us introduce Weddingpaper*, Wallpaper’s first dip into nuptial nirvana, as seen in the October 2021, 25th Anniversary Issue and across Wallpaper.com. Forget the conventional and the staid; here, tradition comes with a twist and frou frou frills with a velvet blue mule.

Whether it’s pairing the cool metal hues of a rose gold wristwatch with the billowing folds of an In-Grid Bride gown, or juxtaposing a luminescent Mikimoto pearl brooch against the mischievous polka dots of a Dunhill shirt, brides and grooms are sure to find something style wise to love. Wedding guests, too, take note: our chic and sculptural guide to timeless gifting puts the days of mismatched china long behind us, making for a very modern take on wedded bliss. §

If the last two years have taught us anything, it’s that nothing beats an in-person art encounter.

As the the Covid-19-induced backlog of show postponements begins to settle, art fairs are tentatively emerging, and uncertainty is becoming less of a certainty. We finally have an alternative to viewing art via pixels, which – bar recent NFT dramas – never quite offered the same thrills. 

As our diaries rapidly fill, these are the shows, in London and around the UK, worth pencilling in. 

Exhibition: Marina Abramović: ‘Seven Deaths’
Location: Lisson Gallery 
Dates: Until 17 October (Cork Street); 30 October 2021 (Lisson Street)

Autumn 2021 marks something of citywide domination for Serbian performance artist Marina Abramović; the artist is not just present, but omnipresent. Her headline show ‘Seven Deaths’ is taking place at Lisson Gallery (across their Cork Street and Lisson Street spaces), a multifaceted ode to iconic soprano Maria Callas through film and installation. ‘I am secure in my skin as a performance artist, so I was interested in doing something new, to go into a world that I had never been to before,’ Abramović told us in a recent interview. ‘The opera world has such strict rules – so it’s a good thing to break them.’ The artist also stars in ‘Humble Works’ at Colnaghi gallery alongside collaborators Fyodor Pavlov-Andreevich and Nico Vascellari where her work is in dialogue with a series of masterworks. 

Exhibition: Sarah Lucas: ‘Sex Life’
Location: The Perimeter
Dates: Until 18 December 2021

Spanning more than 25 years of Sarah Lucas’ career, and drawn principally from the collection of ​​The Perimeter founder Alexander V. Petalas, ‘Sex Life’ looks at the work of this cultural subverter, an original member of the Young British Artists, with an entirely new gaze. Through amorphous sitters with exaggerated limbs and globular breasts, Lucas has captured the human body in its many erotic, repressed, and enigmatic guises. The show spans her playful musings with the self-portrait in the early 1990s to nylon-clad sculptural bodies (or body parts) that engage with furniture and other undefinable apparatus, and bulbous bronzes that trap the surrounding show on their hyper-polished surfaces. As novelist Deborah Levy writes in the exhibition publication: ‘The title of this exhibition, ‘Sex Life’, allows the inner life of the viewer full freedom to roam. Lucas’ gaze on the human body does not please itself with one critique, nor does it hit the side of the face so much as smash into its guts’.

Exhibition: Frieze London
Location: Regent’s Park
Dates: Until 17 October 2021

With recent restrictions increasing the appetite for outdoor art consumption, Frieze Sculpture 2021 has turned Regent’s Park into an art hotspot. On view until 17 October 2021, the exhibition will overlap with Frieze London, as the fair marks a momentous IRL return to the capital. This year’s offerings explore displacement, geopolitical power structures, environmental concerns and endangered futures. Participants are international and intergenerational, including Rasheed Araeen, Daniel Arsham, Anthony Caro, Gisela Colón, José Pedro Croft, Carlos Cruz-Diez, Stoyan Dechev, Ibrahim El-Salahi, Annie Morris, Isamu Noguchi, Vanessa da Silva, and Serpentine Galleries’ presentation of Sumayya Vally’s (Counterspace) Fragment of Serpentine Pavilion. 

Exhibition: Chila Burman
Location: Covent Garden market
Dates: Until October 2021

British artist Chila Burman has transformed London’s Covent Garden market building into a neon art wonderland. In the same spirit as her monumental outdoor takeover of Tate Britain’s facade in 2020, Burman’s bold new multi-part public installation, Do you see words in rainbows celebrates love and identity in the modern world, while drawing on the area’s rich history. As the artist told us in a recent interview: ‘Covent Garden has always retained a sense of magic for me. And it was this idea of magic that I wanted to capture in my piece. I want to bring joy and wonder to the public in much the same way, particularly as our lives remain impacted by covid.’

Exhibition: Anish Kapoor
Location: Lisson Gallery, Bell Street
Dates: Until 30 October 2021

Anish Kapoor’s show at Lisson Gallery is not easy on the eye, but it is hard to stop looking at. Paintings and sculptures resemble bodies with their skins off - a sea of red: the colour of interiority. Kapoor drapes these visceral innards on three-dimensional structures: a metal frame and another which resembles a stairway to hell, with gleaming resin offering an illusion of liquid blood. If the Renaissance was about using paint to capture reality, Kapoor’s work uses paint to warp it, exaggerate it, and bring it a little too close to home. Alongside this show, a major exhibition of Kapoor’s paintings will run at Modern Art Oxford from 2 October 2021 - 13 February 2022, with both shows preceding Kapoor’s major retrospective at Gallerie dell’Accademia di Venezia, opening April 2022 to coincide with the Venice Biennale.

Exhibition: Kudzanai-Violet Hwami: ‘When You Need Letters for Your Skin’
Location: Victoria Miro
Dates: Until 6 November 2021

‘When You Need Letters for Your Skin’ marks Zimbabwean-born Kudzanai-Violet Hwami’s first show at Victoria Miro since joining its roster in 2020. Marking a departure from her previous work, the artist introduces a series of powerful nudes combining fragmented source material and mining from archival images, vintage pornographic extracts and personal photographs. These potent collage portraits are imbued with a rich variety of sexual, spiritual and political identities, and explore how these can translate in both the physical and digital spaces. 

Exhibition: Sophie Taeuber-Arp
Location: Tate Modern
Dates: Until 17 October

Sophie Taeuber-Arp was a pioneer of the French avant-garde. She probed the intersections of abstract art, craft and design, and proved that, in practice, such distinctions need not exist. A major retrospective at Tate Modern – the first of her work ever held in the UK – is dedicated to the life and work of this trailblazer, and it’s been a long time coming. Through 200 key works and objects from collections across Europe and America, the show captures how an artist, once overlooked, quite literally gave geometric abstraction a new vocabulary. What is most striking about ​​Taeuber-Arp’s work is its lasting influence on contemporary artists. One such artist is Haegue Yang, who recently shared her perspective on the legacy of this extraordinary artist. 

Exhibition: ‘Mend Piece for London’, by Yoko Ono
Location: Whitechapel Gallery
Dates: Until 2 January 2022

50 years after originally staging the work at Indica Gallery – a hub for countercultural art in the 1960s – iconic artist, musician and activist Yoko Ono has brought her interactive work Mend Piece back to London. Whitechapel Gallery visitors are invited to engage directly with the installation by repairing broken fragments of pottery with glue, twine, scissors and tape. On entering the space, participants are offered simple instructions provided by the artist: ‘Mend carefully. / Think of mending the world at the same time.’ Once finished, the ‘mended’ objects are displayed on adjacent shelves. Mend Piece for London channels the Japanese tradition of kintsugi, the art of repairing broken pottery using lacquer mixed with precious metals such as gold and silver. The process embraces breakage as part of an object’s history, rather than seeking to hide it. The physical act of repairing is also a timely metaphor for another kind of mending: healing through community, and through the mind.

Exhibition: Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize
Location: The Photographer’s Gallery
Dates: Until 26 September

Now on show at The Photographer’s Gallery, the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize brings together 2021’s four shortlisted artists: Poulomi Basu, Alejandro Cartagena, Cao Fei and Zineb Sedira. Their challenging works provide perspective on universally resonant themes. Cinematic immersion and dystopian fiction in the work of Cao Fei; brutally effective and subversive political narratives in Poulomi Basu’s publication; richly layered and personal storytelling in Alejandro Cartagena’s research of home-ownership in Northern Mexico and the collective and individual memories combined in Zineb Sedira’s practice. This year marks the iconic prize’s 25th anniversary. 

Writer: Sophie Gladstone

Exhibition: Yayoi Kusama: ‘Infinity Mirror Rooms’
Location: Tate Modern
Dates: Until 12 June 2022

On the post-lockdown London art scene, there seems to be a recurring theme: immersion. These include Ryoji Ikeda’s sensory ambush at 180 The Strand, and Es Devlin’s recent Forest for Change at Somerset House for London Design Biennale. But Tate Modern is hosting the piece of work that arguably redefined the role of immersion in contemporary art: Yayoi Kusama’s ‘Infinity Mirror Rooms’. The year-long show will comprise two of the artist’s acclaimed mirror room installations in a dizzying marriage of mirrors, light and water, which offers the illusion of limitless space. Also on view is The Universe as Seen from the Stairway to Heaven, 2021, Kusama’s brand new ’peep in’ sculpture, which has been created specifically for the show. At 92, Kusama remains a prolific force: the artist currently has a simultaneous shows at Victoria Miro, London, the New York Botanical Garden, and a major retrospective at Gropius Bau in Berlin. She has also recently collaborated with brands such as Veuve Clicquot, which involved a striking sculptural intervention on the French Champagne house’s premium cuvée, La Grande Dame. 

Exhibition: ‘From The Real: Liliane Tomasko and Sean Scully’
Location: Newlands House, Petworth, West Sussex
Dates: Until 10 October 2021

For the first time in the UK, Liliane Tomasko and Sean Scully – partners in life and work – are showing their work side by side. Though both artists deal in the currency of abstraction and inhabit the same working and living spaces, their approaches are poles apart. Scully – who we interviewed last year – draws on acute personal experiences for his painting and sculpture, which culminate physically charged ‘supergrids’, stripes and blocks of colour. Here, he unveils his black square series in the UK for the first time: ominous panels rupture otherwise beguiling stripe paintings, described by the artist as ‘nihilistic and negative’. Tomasko, by contrast, draws on the universal experience of domestic life. Her paintings begin life figuratively, based on polaroid photographs, but gradually fracture and meld into abstraction. With each stage of the process, her gestural paintings become further and further removed from their source, akin to the lost warped narratives of Chinese whispers. 

Exhibition: ‘Masterpieces in Miniature: The 2021 Model Art Gallery’
Location: Pallant House, Chichester
Dates: Until spring 2022

The 2021 Model Art Gallery at Pallant House is a microcosm of contemporary British art featuring tiny new works created over the last year by 34 leading artists. The dolls house-esque gallery features new works sculptures by Julian Opie, ceramics by Grayson Perry, with a façade clad in Lothar Götz’s electric geometric mural, and pieces by Michael Armitage, Cecily Brown, Michael Craig-Martin, Gary Hume, Magdalene Odundo, and Rachel Whiteread. Ever thought you’d have to squint for a closer look at a Sean Scully or spot a porcelain pot by Edmund de Waal no bigger than a thimble? We didn’t either, but there’s a first time for everything. 

Exhibition: ‘Karla Black: Sculptures (2001-2021)’
Location: Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh
Dates: Until 21 November 2021

For her latest show at the newly reopened Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh, Turner Prize-nominated artist Karla Black is ‘reimagining a retrospective’. Armed with 30 existing sculptures and new commissions, she has staged a full-scale material ambush that responds directly to the gallery, which has just been rejuvenated and extended by Reiach and Hall Architects. Black’s show is a lesson in materiality, and these sculptures are constructed from her signatures: cardboard, sugar paper, polystyrene, polythene, Cellophane, Sellotape, glass, mirror, net, Vaseline, plaster powder, powder paint, medicines, cosmetics and thread. The works – large and small – sprawl across brick walls, appear in gallery windows and spill across floors. The pièce de résistance, Waiver For Shade, is a major site-specific commission Black has created within the gallery’s new warehouse space.

Exhibition: Eduardo Chillida 
Location: Hauser & Wirth Somerset 
Dates: Until 3 Jan 2022

Spanish sculptor Eduardo Chillida’s craftsman’s intimacy, philosopher’s sensibility and cosmic vision is currently being celebrated in a new show at Hauser & Wirth Somerset. Last month, Wallpaper* contributing editor Nick Vinson offered us a first look. The show spans 51 years and includes 24 small- and large-scale sculptures, alongside works on paper, hung in three of the five original farm buildings and dotted on the landscape. The rural vernacular of Hauser & Wirth Somerset offers remarkable comparisons with Chillida Leku, the outdoor museum near San Sebastián, Spain, dedicated to the work of the pioneering artist. Among the Piet Oudolf-designed gardens, ancient farm buildings and expansive countryside surroundings, Chillida’s trailblazing work feels very much at home. Also at the gallery is show of work by Gustav Metzger, who, over a six-decade career, examined the intersection between human intervention, nature and man-made environments. 

Exhibition: ‘Tony Cragg at Houghton Hall’
Location: Houghton Hall, Norfolk
Dates: Until 26 September 

Those craving an alfresco art experience need look no further than the palatial Houghton Hall estate in Norfolk. There, British sculptor Tony Cragg is currently dominating its grounds with a self-curated survey exhibition spanning a decade of work with a particular focus on new pieces, some of which have been created specifically for the show. The artist is well versed in turning the great outdoors into his gallery. In 2008, he founded Skulpturenpark Waldfrieden in Wuppertal, Germany, where he lives, works and exhibits, recently staging a joint show with fellow sculptor Sean Scully. Cragg has the distinctive ability to simulate motion in motionless forms – his imposing outdoor works, created in bronze, stainless steel, fibreglass and polyester swirl, drip and spill over like liquid. Cragg will also display more than 20 smaller pieces in the state rooms and gallery spaces inside Houghton Hall. As Cragg succinctly describes his feelings about his discipline: ‘Sculpture gives us new forms, new ideas and new emotions. It literally gives things meaning and opens new perspectives.’

Exhibition: ‘Shapeshifters: The Image in Flux’
Location: online
Dates: Until 5 February 2022

‘Shapeshifters: The Image in Flux’ brings together ten contemporary artists pushing the boundaries of photographic transformation; images in their original form are simply raw ingredients for this cohort. Whether folding, scanning, cutting, ripping, sticking, stitching, merging or collaging, every destructive and constructive method is fair game as these curious artists generate new meanings. Through this breadth of approaches, what is presented by one artist, is questioned by another. Viewable on Open Doors Gallery until 5 February 2022, the ten artists include ​​Ibrahim Azab, Cecilia Bonilla, Anthony Gerace, Ricardo Miguel Hernández, Kensuke Koike, Kíra Krász, Alexandra Lethbridge, Joseph Staples, Miriam Tölke and Constanza Valderrama. 

Welcome to Weddingpaper*, Wallpaper’s first dip into nuptial nirvana, as seen in the October 2021, 25th Anniversary Issue and across Wallpaper.com. Forget the conventional and the staid; here, tradition comes with a twist and frou frou frills with a velvet blue mule.

Whether it’s pairing the cool metal hues of a rose gold Patek Philippe watch with the billowing folds of an In-Grid Bride gown, or juxtaposing a luminescent Mikimoto pearl brooch against the mischievous polka dots of a Dunhill shirt, brides and grooms are sure to find something style wise to love. Wedding guests, too, take note: our chic and sculptural guide to timeless gifting puts the days of mismatched china long behind us, making for a very modern take on wedded bliss.

We’ve also popped the question of engagement rings – for men and for women – tracking down the minimalist and the marvellous, the neat and the niche, even the sustainably minded and stackable. 

Throughout our guide, we seek the chic, but with an eye for an alternative take on style. If a tiara will truly make your day, we have delicate yet dazzling options alongside more daring silhouettes. Should an insouciant suit, a simple slip dress, or full-on frills tick your bridal wear box, we’ve got that covered. And there’s no need to commit, to your wardrobe at least – consider pearl dresses and jewelled veils that are available for hire. 

Recent times have seen weddings postponed, restricted, and in many cases totally reconceived. If you are considering tying the knot now, you may be thinking big or bijou for your wedding day, bold or understated, a lavish celebration or a simple ceremony. Whatever your plans, we hope that our edits of deeply desirable accoutrements for modern brides and grooms will help you find as much or as little as you need. 

Find inspiration here, and below, and enjoy our matches made in design heaven! §

Colour blocking

Maryland House

Tucked away on an unassuming street, within a quiet residential pocket off the beaten track in east London, Remi Connolly-Taylor’s first new build cuts a distinctly contemporary figure. Marking the end of a residential terrace, the bold structure feels at once modern and respectful to the low Victorian housing it sits next to. Maryland House, named after its namesake neighbourhood in Stratford, is a highly tailored live/work space, designed precisely for the needs of its dynamic creator and her young business. The site used to be a small, empty lot filled with rubbish and debris from surrounding construction. Now, it holds a two-level home with a studio on top, and is clad in London stock brick that mirrors the surrounding materials and colour tones of the neighbourhood’s mix of Victorian and post-war housing. With only 100 sq m of internal space, size played a key role in design decisions. ‘Maryland House was designed around what we could and couldn’t do,’ says Connolly-Taylor. Working with local manufacturers and craftsmen, the project developed into a jewel box of a home, ticking all the boxes for efficiency, functionality, spaciousness and a clean, fairly minimalist aesthetic. 

The House Recast

Studio Ben Allen’s House Recast has been crowned the overall winner at the ‘Don’t Move, Improve’ competition in London. The playfully colourful architecture of the home stood out to the judging panel from 22 shortlisted designs that celebrated home improvement and everyday, yet exceptional domestic design. The main prize is awarded following a string of announcements regarding sub-category wins, including gongs for working-from-home designs and unique character. Studio Ben Allen’s work topped the charts with a home that ‘pushes the boundaries of how homes can look and feel’, say the judges. 

Mo-tel House by Office S&M

What started as a remodelling project of the lower ground floor of a Victorian townhouse in Islington, ended in an explotion of fun colour and shape in London’s Mo-tel House by Office S&M. The owners were after a playful interior to brighten up their daily life and the young architecture studio obliged, creating a composition of bold colours. Block coloured surfaces and tinted mirrors make up a striking interior and gently distort perceptions of scale, giving the appearance of a space that is larger than it actually is. Built in furniture is especially designed to fit the concept and colour scheme. There are bespoke kitchen cabinets in shades of blue; a pink and dark blue bench as part of the dining area; a pink staircase ballustrade; and a light green ceiling running throughout. 

Amott Road by Alexander Owen Architecture 

If the 2021 shortlist for ‘Don’t Move, Improve’ is anything to go by, then home improvements during a year of on-and-off lockdowns have resulted in a series of fun and playful projects. The coveted London-wide competition’s nominees have just been announced and it’s clear that colour is king and unexpected designs that bring a sense of lightness to the everyday have been the order of the day in the UK capital. A great example is this South London extension by emering local architecture studio Alexander Owen. 

Going bold

Villa Nilon

A historic 1923 villa in Zurich has been transformed with a splash of colour, courtesy of Swiss architecture studio ILAI. Playful and bold yellow and pink hues now adorn the bathrooms and hallways, along with monochrome patterned tiles, which cleverly offset and underline the colour choices. A bespoke green joinery kitchen brings joy to everyday cooking, while the house’s original stained glass windows play a key role in the composition too. Adding colour is not the only thing the architects did in this contemporary redesign. Tearing down walls to open up the space, and inserting strategic openings helped create a sense of spatial generosity throughout, while flooding the interior with natural light. ‘Thanks to the clear graphic language of the architectural shapes and surface treatments, the villa has been given a playful character,’ say the practice principals Iela Herrling and Adi Heusser. 

The Blue Building by LOT

A commission for a private house for a pair of artists, The Blue House certainly stands out among its neighbours in Bushwick, Brooklyn. The brainchild of New York and Athens based architecture studio LOT, the home showcases how a fairly ‘typical’ townhouse renovation can offer fertile ground for fun and experimentation. The architects painted the whole exterior a bold blue tone, drawing inspiration from their Formations design project, a series of ultramarine blue seating-scaled elements. Inside, colour remains a theme, albeit in gentler shades. Translucent, polycarbonate panels, black painted wooden floors, walls in white, light pink and green, compose a sophisticated interior that balances the building’s strong outward statement. 

Lover’s House by Isla Architects

Briefed to create a home for a speculative resident that would immediately stand out in the local property market, Mallorca-based Isla Architects responded by drawing on the Balearic island’s warm climate, natural beauty and relaxed lifestyle, as well as Spain’s architectural heritage for inspiration. The result, named Lover’s House, sits in Santa Maria, in the heart of the island, and is a textured and colourful Mallorcan retreat. The structure’s warm terracota-pink colour (concrete tinted with a shade of red) is a defining element in the design. Reminiscent of the work of Mexican modernist Luis Barragán, known for his use of light and bold colour, often in compositions that feel tactile and close to earth, the house reads as at once textured and connected to the natural landscape around it, but also graphic and contemporary. 

Mountain View House by CAN

An Edwardian semi-detatched house in South London got a radical makeover, courtesy of architecture studio CAN. The project, playfully bringing together bold colours, unusual details and a staged mountain scenery top, belongs to practice founder Mat Barnes and his family of four; which made the daring decisions somewhat easier, even though, Barnes explains, ‘in a way my wife served the client role, tempering ideas that were too impractical or downright absurd.’ The architect drew on references such as the Hi-Tech style of Hopkins House and Dior’s 2015 Dior Musée Rodin show in Paris. He also further developed fascinations around thin frames and the scaffolding aesthetic he had previously explored in the practice’s Lomax Studio project. The rear extension’s mountain profile was employed to create a juxtaposition between the thin ground level frame and the heavier-seeming top. ‘This was designed to exaggerate the fragility of the structure by emphasising the weight of the roof,’ he says. ‘The mountain profile also worked compositionally with the existing house.’ 

Pastels

AR Residence by Dedraft

East London architects Dedraft have completed an avocado green extension in a Walthamstow home. The volume is part of the redesign of a typical terraced house for an illustrator and a librarian. The clients were keen to use bold colour and have plenty of natural light inside, and the architects responded with a matte, dusty green aluminium panelled addition. This houses an interior that uses grey concrete floor tiles, natural pine, Corian worktops and pale grey, stack-bonded, sand-blaster blockwork on the walls. More muted interior tones make for a versatile environment. However, brighter colours do pop up inside too, for example in the family bathroom’s green porcelain tiles and black hardware.

Upper Wimpole by Jonathan Tuckey Design 

Renovation and conversion expert Jonathan Tuckey’s latest home interior design, a house improvement in central London’s Wimpole Street, brings together the Italian Renaissance, John Soane’s Bank of England, Louis Kahn, Regency styles and British castles. Tuckey’s concept consisted of a series of refined, craft-rich joinery elements, which would appear in different rooms and unite the interior with a coherent single approach – at the same time differentiating each room through the colour and type of joinery, giving each space its own identity. The design proposal had roots in the owner’s brief and functional requirements for storage and the need to subdivide certain spaces. 

Monon Guesthouse

A curious wooden structure has emerged in a back garden in the Los Angeles neighbourhood of Los Feliz. Nestled behind a hillside property, this is Monon Guesthouse, the latest work by Californian architectural designer Jerome Byron; and its unusual appearance and architectural folly-like, pavillion nature was not a coincidence. ‘As a commission, the guest house was meant to spark creativity and imagination for both the husband and wife, an entrepreneur and writer, and their two young children,’ explains Byron. The guesthouse, spanning two levels and some 245 sq ft, now sits among rich foliage in a finely landscaped architectural garden. The levels, pathways and planting were designed by LA office Terremoto, who came into the site first, reimaginging it with a wild and graphic garden of cacti and grasses. The small cabin-like addition was going to be added among this natural environment. 

§

Designer, maker and educator Norman Teague set up his design and build studio in Chicago in 2018. ‘Design should always satisfy a level of learning, human connection and interaction,’ he says when describing his practice, which focuses on connecting with local communities and specialises in spatial design, furniture fabrication, objects and custom millwork.

Norman Teague’s furniture designs

‘Design history needs to reinvent itself in a whole lot of ways,’ said Teague in a short film released in early 2021, coinciding with an exhibition of his furniture titled ‘From Lawn Road to South Chicago’, at New York gallery R & Company. ‘Your world is the history that you read about, and if you’re wrapping your head around the things that really say that you don’t belong here, then we have to create other books, or we have to create another world.’ 

The show presented Teague’s ‘Africana’ chairs and ‘Sinmi’ stool alongside historical plywood designs from Gerald Summers and Marcel Breuer. His furniture pieces, Teague explains, represent design ideals and the voices of craft from the African diaspora, often left out of the design conversation. While the chunky legs of ‘Africana’  are inspired by carved stools of the Lobi people of Burkina Faso, ‘Sinmi’ is based on Chicago city life, its rocking movement nodding to the act of chilling while leaning on a car or the backrest of a sofa. The ‘presence’ of these pieces’ forms, he explains, ‘speaks to the African diaspora, its steadfastness and resilience’.

Community-led initiatives

Local initiatives are often more important to Teague than physical designs: ‘It’s important to me to collaborate with the “community”: youth, my neighbours, working with other craftsmen, artisans or small businesses to rise together,’ he points out. Back Alley Jazz comes to mind, a 2018 festival he curated in Chicago’s South Shore, paying tribute to the original jazz alley jams that took place in the area in the 1960s and 1970s, while involving the local community with one-day music events in the neighbourhood’s backyards.

‘Back Alley Jazz has just had its fourth annual event and has spread from one block to moving throughout the South Shore neighbourhood,’ explains Teague. ‘It really reintroduced the community to its own power; it gave them the autonomy to recreate historical community-wide events.’

Looking at youth in his community also inspired the Tilden Career Community Academy, an incubator programme introducing basic design fundamentals to high-school students in a predominantly African American/Latinx school district. Observing how this type of creative and manual work is not taught in schools anymore, and identifying it as a potential tool for independence and empowerment, Teague created a pathway from Tilden High School, on the South Side of Chicago, to universities that offer design programmes. ‘The future impact is a pipeline of Black design students and professionals working to influence design, urban planning and architecture across their communities,’ he notes.

‘In the truest sense, Brother Teague designs collaboratively, thinks strategically, and is committed to training Black and brown makers through innovative apprenticeship and guild-like studio practices’ – Theaster Gates

‘In the truest sense, Brother Teague designs collaboratively, thinks strategically, and is committed to training Black and brown makers through innovative apprenticeship and guild-like studio practices,’ says artist Theaster Gates, who tips Teague as one of 25 creative leaders of the future in Wallpaper’s 25th Anniversary Issue ‘5x5’ project. ‘Norman’s determination and design vocabulary continue to inspire me. I’m grateful to have this Chicago-based brother in my circle.’

Gates enlisted Teague as one of his collaborators for the project 12 Ballads for Huguenot House at Documenta, Kassel, in 2012. Involving a team of builders, artists and makers, including Teague, Gates took over an empty hotel building and restored it using materials from an abandoned South Side structure. 

There’s no denying the potential impact of Teague’s work on a new generation of Black makers and creators. ‘The stories that sometimes coincide with my work are not just stories of my own, but a community of people sharing stories,’ he says. ‘My advice to this generation of designers would be to always consider your craft as a conversation with humans.’ §

It was an intimidating office to first step into. Here was a perfectly dressed team – not too fashion, not too street – perched in front of perfectly placed Vitsoe shelving systems by Dieter Rams. There were no coats hung on the backs of chairs, no clutter on the simple white desks and no readable expressions on the faces of the team (this was nothing to do with Botox; they were far too young). The staff embodied the pages of the magazine: stylish, global and a tad aloof.

Having been poached from a position at the Evening Standard – where you were sat at your desk from 7am to 9pm five days a week, typing with one hand, making phone calls and eating a sandwich with the other – the first few months were a culture shock. I had to sign off giant pieces of furniture being shipped from São Paulo to Shoreditch and back again for two-day design shoots; was presented with expenses claiming back the cost of sun creams worn for stays at five-star hotels in Thailand; and waited months before meeting some members of the team who preferred not to travel into the central London office.

And then there was the annual trip to the Salone del Mobile in Milan. A sensory overload of extraordinary new furniture design, warehouses displaying the latest sanitary ware innovations or lighting concepts, and evening after evening of parties and openings and exhibits. It was at least a year until it felt normal.

The team changed and settled and smiled a little more, packing for a three-day trip once a fortnight to visit clients, sponsors and collaborators everywhere from Manila to Moscow felt humdrum, and the sight of armchairs constructed from teddy bears (Campana Brothers) or a lamp poking out of a life-sized horse (Moooi) being carefully carried past my glass-walled office each week barely earned a second glance.

It seemed normal, too, to visit Zaha Hadid at her offices and ask her to design an exhibition for us (she agreed) in Giorgio Armani’s show space (he kept peering around the door to watch it being built); to persuade Bombardier to sponsor the building of a full-size Wallpaper* bullet train that somehow resembled Dippy the Diplodocus from the Natural History Museum (W*80); and to collaborate with Phaidon to publish over 100 Pantone-coloured, pocket-sized Wallpaper* City Guides.

By the time I left, I had grown to love the bonkers world of grand design and big business; the fact that on Friday nights the core team would swap green tea at their pristine desks for messy pints at the grotty pub behind the offices; and to understand and respect the dedication to, curiosity for, and admiration of the new, beautiful and clever design that emanated annually from across the globe that the magazine’s team was there to find, share and celebrate.

Tyler Brûlé cleverly created a magazine and a brand that was strong enough to survive numerous incarnations, navigate many twists and turns in taste and demand, and survive 25 years that have seen the media landscape change beyond recognition. I feel very fortunate to have played a small part in that sometimes minimal, other times colourful, but always eventful journey. §

Margaret Howell documents the intricate process of creating the perfect shirt in a new film, The Making of a Shirt. Produced with filmmaker Emily Richardson, the film follows the steps of creating the garment, from the cutting to the finishing and checking, from Margaret Howell’s workroom in Edmonton, north London.

‘In my teenage years, I enjoyed making my own clothes from paper patterns, but the one thing that was a real challenge was to make a shirt. A shirt has so many strong pieces,’ Howell muses in the short film. ‘You have to halve and quarter to get it to set correctly, and then all these little details – at least two dozen pieces of pattern that go into making the shirt.’

The perfect shirt

Each shirt made in the Unit 7 workroom is created individually by a machinist, whose initials are sewn into the finished piece. The machinist’s detailed work is celebrated with close-up shots of a pair of hands as they go about the intricacies of their craft, with every detail observed, from the creating of the holes for the buttons to the jigsaw-like assembling of the pattern pieces.

‘When you’re producing something, or making something, everything’s important,’ Howell says. ‘Every last detail has to be thought about. The collar has to be notched and sit perfectly on the neckband. It has to be well cut as well as well stitched.’

The resulting pieces adhere to Howell’s relaxed aesthetic, consistent with the traditionally less structured cuts of men’s tailoring for shirts, which are easy to wear and comfortable for both women and men. ‘People are conscious of how they feel in a piece of clothing,’ says Howell. ‘The quality comes through the fabric and the make and then the comfort.’ §
 

When Ole Scheeren unveiled his concept for the architecture of Fifteen Fifteen, one of Vancouver’s newest luxury residential projects, back in 2018, the design presented a striking, Jenga-like high rise, confidently making its mark within the skyline of the Canadian city. Fast forward to today, and the those behind the scheme – it is spearheaded by the international studio and Bosa Properties, in partnership with Kingswood Properties – have just revealed the building’s interiors, including its spatious penthouses and residents’ amenity spaces.

Fifteen Fifteen is Ole Scheeren’s first North American residential building. The tower, set in Vancouver’s Coal Harbour neighbourhood, includes 42 storeys and 202 residences, spanning from studios to three-bedroom homes; four penthouses; and 18 cantilevered ‘Observatories’ (the apartments set in the building’s dramatic, glass-wrapped cantilevered volumes). The last are aimed not only at breaking up the vertical volume into a more highly articulated exterior façade, but also offer an unconventional and intriguing unit typology for the scheme. 

Scheeren and Bosa Properties, whose portfolio includes works by renowned architecture practices such as Gensler and Heatherwick Studio, also put an emphasis on their commitment to sustainability, ensuring that this design features environmentally friendly elements too.

These include carefully chosen materials and advanced filtration systems that deliver purified air and water throughout. The goal is for the scheme to eventually achieve a LEED Gold international sustainability certification. 

Striking architectural design and sustainable credentials are matched by an array of contemporary services. The development’s lush amenities list includes a 24-hour valet and concierge service, a fitness and yoga room, and the Sky Lounge, a private club-like space for the residents that occupies the 29th and 30th floors, offering not only striking views of Vancouver’s surrounding nature, but also eye-catching architectural features, such as an undulating ceiling and a view of the building’s pronounced, exposed metal structure. 

Pre-sales at Fifteen Fifteen begin this October, while groundbreaking is scheduled for 2022, aiming for the first residents to move in by 2027. §

The electric scooter has become a familiar site on city streets, whether owned outright by pioneering commuters or picked up from the sidewalk via ride-sharing schemes. Yet the sweet spot between durability, range and practicality is still hard to find. Oakland-based scooter builder Unagi has been in the game for several years, entering the perennially befuddled UK market in 2020 (as its website’s legal disclaimer notes, ‘Electric scooters are not permitted on public roads in the UK. Unagi does not take responsibility for any restricted use of the scooter after purchase’). The company’s latest model, the Model Eleven, is intended to be the ultimate urban transportation tool, wherever you are allowed to actually use it. 

Unagi Model Eleven: full of functionality

The Model Eleven has been shaped by Yves Behar and his team at Fuseproject. The intention was to make the machine as compact as possible without compromising its rugged qualities. Incorporating carbon fibre composite for lightness, as well as puncture-proof tyres for pot-holed city streets, the Model Eleven incorporates full suspension, yet weighs around 14.5kg.

The handlebars become a carrying handle when folded, with a seamless form language used throughout. Riders have acceleration and brake at their fingertips and a simple round touchscreen to show speed, battery life and navigation.

There’s even collision detection and a lane-departure warning as part of Unagi’s advanced driver-assistance system (ADAS), which puts the functionality of a family car into this tiny device. The company expects ADAS to expand into an essential early-warning system for riders, telling them about bumps in the road, traffic lights and impending hazards. There’s also an onboard speaker. 

Range is around 14 miles, with a hot-swappable battery enabling people to keep a spare on charge at work, for example. The model will debut in five colours, Vader Black, Sand, Electric Yellow, Mid-green, and Nightshade. ‘I have been passionate about electrification and the potential to change the urban experience with micro-mobility for ten years,’ says Behar. ‘I’ve experienced electric rental scooters in San Francisco and all over Europe when I travel, and I always thought that the ultimate would be a scooter I could own, rather than rent, when I’m at home.’

The designer explains that an ownable scooter is a very different proposition to the unwieldy rental models. ‘We designed the Unagi Model Eleven to be agile and light with high-performance magnesium, aluminium, and carbon materials, and an innovative dual suspension system.’ He notes that the ADAS is upgradeable, the tyres are easily replaced, and there’s GPS tracking and an alarm.

‘Our goal was to impress with performance and lightness and surprise with considered details and experiential moments,’ Behar concludes. §

Crafted in inky lapis lazuli, the new Jaeger-LeCoultre Rendez-Vous Dazzling Moon Lazura sports a moonphase display drawn in milky white mother-of-pearl, with the moon suspended under polished gold constellations that map the night sky in accurate detail.

The night scene is lit up by the halo of floating diamonds encircling the dial, which are held aloft by claws in a brilliant refraction of light. On the edge of the face sits a gold star; controlled by the second crown, it is designed to mark an extra-special calendar date – a function surely made with your wedding day in mind.

Technicality meets detailing

The marriage of high technicality and exquisite jewellery detailing found in the Jaeger-LeCoultre Rendez-Vous watch marks almost two centuries of intricate watch design. Founded in 1833 in the Vallée de Joux, the brand continues to design, craft and decorate every aspect of its timepieces from its home in the Swiss Jura mountains for a diverse collection of watches ranging from the classic Reverso to the technically impressive Atmos.

Add the Jaeger-LeCoultre Rendez-Vous watch to a bridal look for a modern take on matrimonial elegance. For further wedding inspiration, let us introduce Weddingpaper*, Wallpaper’s first dip into nuptial nirvana, as seen in the October 2021, 25th Anniversary Issue and coming to Wallpaper.com throughout this week. Forget the conventional and the staid; here, tradition comes with a twist and frou frou frills with a velvet blue mule.

Whether it’s pairing the cool metal hues of a rose gold wristwatch with the billowing folds of an In-Grid Bride gown, or juxtaposing a luminescent Mikimoto pearl brooch against the mischievous polka dots of a Dunhill shirt, brides and grooms are sure to find something style wise to love. Wedding guests, too, take note: our chic and sculptural guide to timeless gifting puts the days of mismatched china long behind us, making for a very modern take on wedded bliss. §

Ciao from Milano! Mere weeks after Salone del Mobile 2021, the Italian fashion capital’s show season is back with a bang, with S/S 2022 serving up IRL and digital experiences, from a host of behemoth and burgeoning brands, from Fendi to Andrea Adamo, Prada to Sunnei, across a plethora of landmark locations. It’s been 18 months since Milan hosted such a bumper week of shows and presentations. Here’s everything you need to know about Milan Fashion Week S/S 2022, as it happens.

Max Mara 

 

Max Mara S/S 2022

Escapism has been high on the agenda for spring, and Max Mara’s Ian Griffiths dove into the sun-drenched seductive pages of Francois Sagan’s famed novella, Bonjour Tristesse, written by in 1953 by the-then 18 year old Francoise Quiorez under a pseudonym, reimagining the wardrobe of a stylish bourgeois rebel, holidaying in a secluded villa, tempted by casinos, speedboats and hedonistic exploits. This translated into a wardrobe of breezy ease-fuelled pieces worthy of weeks on the Amalfi Coast and the C’ote D’azure, in sandy, sunburst, nautical, and deckchair shades, like striped boxy shirts layered insouciantly with mini skirts, modernist fisherman’s smocks, workwear jackets, denim blazers and long vests, in denim, canvas, gabardine and poplin. The only accessories for a budding Beat Generation writer? A thin Alice band, chunky soled Mary Jane sandals, slouchy shoulder bags and the concept for a sellout literary classic.

Fendi

Kim Jones looked to the spirit of the Studio 54 dancefloor for spring, referencing Jerry Hall, Tina Chow, Pat Cleveland, Bianca Jagger and Grace Jones as inspiration. An abstract figurative illustration by Antonio Lopez formed for the starting point of the offering – one which celebrated the creative circle of former creative director Karl Lagerfeld. This image was reimagined in intarsia leather, gleaming jacquards and engineered lace, tessellated across chubby fur coats, thigh-high boots, body-hugging mini dresses and gauzy silk gowns. The brand’s optimistic disco-age offering, which also marked Jones’ first live collection, was celebratory and joyful, also serving up silk suiting and fringed dresses in organic, metallic and exuberant hues. It’s time to take your turn under the discoball.

N°21

Shimmering sequins, frothy of ostrich feathers, voluminous folds of taffeta, gauzy layers of organza: the materiality of Alessandro Dell’Acqua’s S/S 2022 show was idiosyncratic of N°21, a label that revels in glamorous embellishments and after-dark, boudoir-inspired tones, all offset with subversive sportswear and utilitarian twists. For spring, Dell’Acqua spoke of giving in to the temptation of design, flirting with couture techniques, intuitition and hand work. Dresses and bomber jackets were imagined as chunky hand-woven knits, tailoring and athleisure tropes juxtaposed going-out pieces, like jersey crop tops paired with plumed wrap mini skirts and silk negligees emblazoned with varsity typography. Dell’Acqua is the master of bringing a relaxed contemporary ease to seductive dialled-up dressing. What could be more a fitting style mantra for 2021?

Jil Sander

Jil Sander S/S 2022

Think of Jil Sander’s S/S 2022 show as an ASMR experience for fashion obsessives, featuring a collection that revealed the sounds of crisp denim and textured leather, jangling sequins, swishing feather-light silk and tactile bouclé. Smocking, cording, padding and coating were all details noted in Lucie and Luke Meier’s S/S 2022 offering, which drew on the duality of dressing, featuring graphic lines, diaphonous shapes and fluid forms. Deckchair-striped dresses were draped around the body, chunky crochet polo shirts were paired with loose denim, trousers sparkled with delicated floral sequins, and oversized suiting was secured asymmetrically across the frame. The designers also spoke of not taking themselves too seriously, an approach exemplified by details riffing on good taste, including tiger print and crystal embellishments. §

Contemporary furniture maker Jan Hendzel has created a modular pavilion in collaboration with landscape designer Tom Hoblyn for The Boodles Secret Garden at London’s Chelsea Flower Show 2021 (until 26 September 2021).

The Secret Garden at Chelsea Flower Show 2021

Inspired by Frances Hodgson Burnett’s children’s story of the same name, the garden, its creators say, is ‘a contemporary interpretation of the journey into an enchanted, life-changing sanctuary’.

The garden is accessed through Hendzel’s pavilion, featuring two louvre walls constructed from sustainably sourced oak found within 15 miles of Chelsea, and made at his workshop in Peckham. For the walls, Hendzel used consecutively cut oak logs, hand carved on one side with an undulated effect. 

On the other side of the walls, Taxus baccata hedging completes the structure, which was created as an interplay between natural and man-made elements. Flowers and leaves bring colour to the composition, with pops of blue, white and pink given by jewel-like plants such as Hydrangea paniculata, Miscanthus sinensis, Verbena hastata, Acis autumnalis and Fuchsia magellanica. 

The sculptural wooden shapes, Hendzel explains, explore natural forms in combination with ‘geometric carved interventions’. The pared-back aesthetic visible from the outside is contrasted with the richer vegetation concealed within the Secret Garden. On one side of the garden space, a textured wooden bench offers a moment of pause to observe the natural compositions by Hoblyn. 

Hendzel was inspired by artist Bridget Riley’s works; from outside, the louvred wall offers a glimpse into the garden’s spaces behind it, creating an optical illusion as visitors walk alongside it. A small pool of water reflects the structure, plants and sky; all the elements come together with an interplay between lights, shadows, and reflections.

The project is a testament to Hendzel’s approach to design and craft. ‘We often take on projects that quickly become more than just making furniture,’ reads the studio’s mission statement. ‘They become discussions of how people think, behave, respond and enjoy.’ §

The Microsoft Surface team has been busy. This week saw the launch of seven new and updated devices in the company’s portable Surface family, including a new version of the Surface Duo 2 folding phone, and the Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio.

As you’d expect, each and every debut features incremental improvements over its predecessor, predominantly in terms of display quality, battery life and processor speed. 

Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio

Surface has always been about flexibility. The newest device to join the set is the Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio, the series’ most powerful laptop to date, with quad-core 11th generation Intel chips, up to two terabytes of solid-state storage and 32 GB of memory. The flexible screen can be angled forward over the keyboard for easier use of the optional pen. It joins the eighth version of the Surface Pro, the tablet that pioneered the use of a detachable cover/keyboard.

There’s also a Surface Pro X, the most flexible and thinnest family member. It sits alongside the Surface Go 3, the simplest and most affordable surface device that is pitched as a go-anywhere tablet with the functionality of a detachable keyboard.  

Microsoft Surface Duo 2

The new Surface Duo 2 improves on the original and shows that Microsoft is still committed to this as-yet-unproven form factor, at least for the time being. Available later in October 2021, the tautologically named Duo 2 beefs up the power, screen size and camera quality.

When we tried the original device back in the spring, the second screen brought welcome flexibility and made phone time feel rather more productive. 

Latest accessories

New accessories include an Adaptive Kit to improve accessibility, and a new iteration of the Surface Slim Pen 2, one of the better digital pens on the market. We especially like the way the pen docks magnetically to the Surface Laptop Studio and charges while it’s in place; it’ll also charge up when stored in the Surface Type Cover or its own charging case.

Finally, there’s also the Ocean Plastic Mouse, an ergonomic wireless pointing device that contains 20 per cent of the recycled material du jour, plastic waste sifted from the oceans. It’s a start. 

If anything, the choice is now too broad, with each Surface finely tuned to appeal to a particular niche. Although it ensures that there’s definitely a device to suit your needs, perhaps a one-size-fits-all strategy might be back in fashion in the near future.

All the laptops in the family have been tuned for the arrival of Windows 11, officially available from the start of October 2021. §

If you’ve come across the city of Duisburg (population about half a million, nestled among the hills and valleys of Rhineland), chances are it would have been for its industrial architecture heritage, or status as the world’s biggest inland port – or for its famed arts hub, the MKM Museum Küppersmühle, the centre for modern and contemporary art in Duisburg’s Inner Harbour and one of the most extensive private collections of German post-war art. And now, Swiss duo Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron, the museum’s original architects, are back in town, celebrating the launch of their latest addition to Duisburg’s culture scene, Herzog & de Meuron’s new extension of the Küppersmühle.

A look back in MKM Museum Küppersmühle’s history

If you look at the majestic, brick structure housing the museum and get visions of the Tate Modern in London, there’s good reason. Duisburg’s Küppersmühle is also the result of the Swiss architecture studio’s skillful redesign of an existing industrial building – done around the same time too (the Tate launched in 2000 and the Duisburg project in 1999). The original structure on site was a grain mill, built in 1860 by leading local industrialist Wilhelm Vedder. This was replaced in 1908 by the complex of three buildings that makes up the museum today. Over the years a boiler house, a series of adjacent steel silos, and other buildings were added, until the facility closed down in the 1970s.

Herzog & de Meuron was first involved with the site in 1997, transforming the original complex into an art hub, aiming to give the campus a new lease of life as part of the city’s regeneration plans for this part of town (the masterplan was the work of Foster + Partners). The studio was called back again in 2013, appointed to create an extension to the impressive complex of historical buildings, kickstarting a new era for MKM Museum Küppersmühle.

The MKM Museum Küppersmühle extension

Respectful to the existing, orthogonal brick volumes on site and the wider setting, the architects created an addition that becomes a seamless part of the historical whole. ‘The new structure thus completes the existing museum complex in a visually appropriate way and forms a suitable conclusion to the row of buildings along the dock,’ they say. ‘At first glance it might seem as though the new building had always been there.’

Divided into three parts, the new addition contains exhibition halls, as well as utilities and art-handling facilities across five floors (one is underground) and a massing arrangement led by local planning guidelines that stipulate no building within 40m of the autobahn. Bridges through the existing silos connect the old and new parts – although these industrial features will serve more than one purpose as American artist James Turrell has created two permanent site-specific installations for them, which are planned to be revealed in 2022. Materials were chosen to complement and draw on the historical fabric. 

A striking, curved staircase connects all floors in the new section, and supports circulation flow throughout. At the same time, through its terracotta tone and textured concrete materiality, it echoes, together with the wider project, the overall character of the Küppersmühle ‘as a typical industrial facility of the 19th and 20th centuries’ – an approach that helps to establish this museum not only as a functional, modern home for the arts, but also as a considered piece of contemporary architecture. §

Art Basel was founded in 1970 by Basel gallerists Ernst Beyeler, Trudl Bruckner and Balz Hilt to rival its neighbouring Art Cologne. The idea was to lure a new wave of collectors and enthusiasts in the postwar consumer society, rich in time, money and new means of global communication. 

But it wasn’t just rarified, deep-pocketed Europeans the fair drew in, it also attracted tyro collectors with a market of accessible editions. In its inaugural year, the Basel fair – then titled succinctly ‘Art’ – attracted 16,000 visitors. By 2019, under the stewardship of global director Marc Spiegler, the fair secured 93,000 visitors over six days, presenting 290 galleries from 35 countries. 

Art Basel has spent the last 50 years redefining what an art fair means, and what an art fair can be. Whether it’s the launch of its Art Unlimited platform (which offered freedom beyond the booth), or anchoring itself as a global art mega-fair with annual Art Basel Miami Beach, Basel and Hong Kong events.

Beyond a marketplace for the well-heeled, a magnet for celebrities, a hotbed for lavish parties and fertile ground for people watching, Art Basel has become a cultural incubator for some of the most radical and iconic events in the history of contemporary art. Here, we reflect on the unforgettable moments that have defined Art Basel.

Maurizio Cattelan’s duct tape-meets-banana drama 

In 2019, it had been a while since the art world had given its community an electric shock. Just as the dust was settling (in retrospect, the calm before an earth-rattling storm), Maurizio Cattelan took the lull as an opportunity to strike. Created in an edition of three, his Comedian consisted of a fresh – if lightly bruised – solitary banana taped to Perrotin gallery’s booth wall with a piece of metallic duct tape. It was a minimal composition – which later inspired a series of T-shirts – using a classic comedy device to comment on global trade. Or maybe not; as Cattelan put it, ‘The banana is supposed to be a banana’. 

In another dramatic plot twist, Georgian performance artist David Datuna ate the piece, calling his post-sale intervention Hungry Artist. This was not the first time Cattelan had harnessed this lucrative combination of tape, walls and organic matter. Twenty years previously, the artist adhered his gallerist, Massimo de Carlo, to his gallery wall in Milan in a web of electrical tape. De Carlo, like the banana, found himself at the complete mercy of the artist in a piece that gave new meaning to the notion of ‘bonding’. 

Klaus Biesenbach and Hans Ulrich Obrist got a room, well 14 Rooms 

14 Rooms, to some extent, was what it said on the tin. For the live artwork, curatorial powerhouses Klaus Biesenbach and Hans Ulrich Obrist invited 14 international artists to each ‘activate’ a room, examining the relationship between space, time, and physicality. But, as one might imagine, there was a twist: each artwork’s ‘material’ was a human being. 

The piece sat somewhere between theatre, sculpture and museum exhibition. The commission was of unprecedented scale for an art fair, running the full duration of Art Basel. This edition of the piece, which first premiered at Manchester International Festival as 11 Rooms, featured works by Marina Abramović, Damien Hirst, Santiago Sierra, Xu Zhen, Ed Atkins, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, and Otobong Nkanga, the latter three debuting new works. Each work took place within its own closed-off room, designed by architects Herzog & de Meuron.

Art Basel braved a new virtual reality

Before 2020, the term ‘OVR’ might have sounded more like an obscure business acronym, or possibly an obsolete file format. But when Covid-19 struck, it became a lifeline for the globally art-deprived. OVRs (or Online Viewing Rooms), came to the fore following the severe outbreak of Covid-19, which, in March 2020, had been declared a global health emergency by the World Health Organisation. In the year of its 50th anniversary, Art Basel had no option but to cancel the 2020 edition of Art Basel Hong Kong. As the first major domino to fall, this sent shockwaves through the art world and left all subsequent in-person events in a frenzy of uncertainty. To keep the momentum alive, Art Basel swiftly recalibrated with its first digital-only edition, in which all galleries for the 2020 Hong Kong show were invited to participate at no cost. 

Now, as many parts of the world tentatively emerge from hibernation, the art world is beginning to wonder whether OVR viewing is, at least in some capacity, here to stay. Art Basel believes so, with the recent launch of Art Basel Live, the fair is presenting a hybrid format that sees digital viewing rooms run in parallel with its in-person fairs. 

Kader Attia smashed up his Arab Spring installation

It was a 2011 press image of looted glass vitrines in Cairo’s Egyptian Museum that inspired Kader Attia’s Arab Spring (2014). For the sculptural installation, staged at Art Basel Unlimited in 2015, Attia re-enacted the moment protesters entered the museum, destroyed its display cases, and robbed their contents during the Arab Revolutions of 2011-12. 

Attia wears a dark hoodie shielding his face as he pelts bricks to shatter the vitrines – a gritty performance, filled with revolt and anger. In Arab Spring, Attia explored the legacy of colonialism, specifically French colonialism, and the contradictory notion of how a country intent on reclaiming its future would destroy what was at last becoming theirs. Attia staged the performance at the preview of Art Basel, the shattered glass and red brick debris forming the final work.

Abraham Cruzvillegas built a dance stage from trash

In 2018, marking Art Basel’s first free public exhibition, ‘Autorreconstrucción: To Insist, to Insist, to Insist’, by Mexican artist Abraham Cruzvillegas, was part multidisciplinary installation, part ode to rubbish. The performance piece was comprised of literal trash, devised by Cruzvillegas and the Argentine choreographer Barbara Foulkes. It was installed to inaugurate the newly built 60,000 sq ft Grand Ballroom at Art Basel Miami Beach and organised with curator Philipp Kaiser and the independent New York art space The Kitchen, where the work was shown previously. 

Autorreconstrucción, which translates as ‘self-construction’, is a concept rooted in the artist’s childhood, when his home was built with what was at hand. This experience paved the way for the artist’s signature motif: sculptural forms constructed from locally found materials. In ‘Autorreconstrucción: To Insist, to Insist, to Insist’, the constructions were activated by musicians and acrobatic dancers. 

Performers swarmed inside Alexandra Pirici’s Messeplatz igloo

Staged inside an igloo-like construction on Basel’s Messeplatz, Romanian artist and dancer Alexandra Pirici’s public installation Aggregate (2017-2019) had our pre-Covid-19 world written all over it. In this intense performative environment – which debuted at the Neuer Berliner Kunstverein in 2017 – the audience mingles with a swarm of performers, who spontaneously pick from a list of rehearsed enactments.

At any given time, performers can initiate movements that others might choose to follow. The reference points for these actions were wide-ranging: from the leap of an antelope to Michelangelo’s David, or a Depeche Mode song lyric. After hours of interaction in this improvisational environment, tension mounted within the complex audience-performer relationship.

Art Basel global director Marc Spiegler goes ear-to-ear with creative luminaries 
 

Spanning art, architecture, music, fashion, design, literature, Art Basel’s podcast, Intersections, launched in 2021, offers listeners access to the voices at the forefront of the creative industries, and all the liminal spaces in between. Presented by UBS, bi-weekly episodes are hosted by Marc Spiegler, Art Basel’s global director who will invite industry-leading guests to take part in one-on-one conversations. The podcast launched on 19 July with two episodes: one featuring renowned Ghanaian-British architect David Adjaye, and another with producer, rapper and collector Kasseem Dean, aka Swizz Beatz. Guests in the pipeline include Lisa Spellman, Kim Gordon and Pamela Joyner. §