08.16.22

Excerpt: Exhibition

A Traveling Gallery Show in Belgium Offers a Renewed Sense of Discovery

August may be a sleepy time of year, but there are signs of life this month in the coastal Belgian town of Knokke. This summer, the galleries Barbé Urbain and Atelier Ecru, located in Ghent, have teamed up to present a temporary exhibition of collectible design and contemporary art outside of their dedicated spaces. Named to evoke a sense of discovery, the Magellan show brings together works by a host of artists and designers in the De Beir residence, an iconic early Modernist building. Designed by Belgian architect Huib Hoste, who was greatly influenced by the Dutch de Stijl movement, and built in 1924, the De Beir house provides an inviting backdrop and context for the variety of media and methods on display.

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08.15.22

Fair Report

A Favorite French Design Festival Returns With a Crop of Fresh Talent

If you assumed earlier this year, based on a barrage of dreamy, sun-drenched Instagram posts, that all your favorite French designers — India Mahdavi, Pierre Yovanovitch, Dorothée Meilichzon  — seemed to be vacationing in the same idyllic beach town in the French Riviera, you would be almost correct. Actually, they were attending the 16th edition of Design Parade, the French design festival that has become a go-to for spotting new trends and discovering the next wave of buzzy young designers.

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08.11.22

Sighted

Raf Simons Just Dropped a 16-Piece Shaker-Inspired Accessory Collection for Kvadrat

Over the course of nine years, the ongoing collaboration between Raf Simons and Kvadrat has brought us bold textiles attuned to color, texture, and proportion. Their latest project, the Shaker System, is no exception, while also being a bit of a departure. It’s a storage and accessories collection that fuses a precise simplicity with the comfort and ease of home. The idea came, in part, from Simons’ numerous moves between Europe and America, and continually having to establish a place that felt welcoming. Think of it as Simons asking: “How do we actually live?” And then answering the question with functional organization that wants to be displayed. The Shaker System has more than enough character to anchor a space, but it can also, chameleon-like, mix with what’s already there.

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08.10.22

Sighted

In Lisbon, a Theater-Restaurant Revives the Former Stables of an 18th-Century Palace

To set the scene for this all-day, every-day artistic production, designed by French architect Julien Labrousse, the historic building was left largely untouched. Exposed ceiling trusses, crumbling plasterwork, and ornate doorways all add to the mystery and allure of the space, in which audience members interact with the costumed staff-slash-entertainers.

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04.13.21

Sighted

These Renderings of Tantuvi’s New Rugs Will Transport You to a Sun-Drenched Desert Villa

The interior dreamed up by 3D artist Nareg Taimoorian — all pigmented concrete floors, slatted white oak breezeways, built-in sofas, flat, Modernist rooflines, and arched doorways — calls to mind a vacation spot in Greece or Mallorca, which was important to Tantuvi founder Arati Rao "since no one can travel right now."

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08.09.22

Travel

In the South of France, a Home Built Into the Limestone Cliffs is Your Newest Luxury Destination

L’Étoile des Baux offers a dedicated concierge, swimming pool, open-air cinema, outdoor theater, a gym, a boules court, a children’s playhouse, and the ability to hire a chef on-demand — all wrapped up in a home built into the limestone cliffs of Les Baux-de-Provence, with gorgeous interiors by the French designer Joséphine Fossey.

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08.06.22

Saturday Selects

Week of August 1, 2022

A weekly recap to share with you our favorite links, discoveries, exhibitions, and more from the past seven days. This week: a new French studio founded by Fabrizio Casiraghi and Pierre Yovanovitch alums, works in stone and wood on view at Radford Gallery in London, and a new vanity set meant to encourage the commercial liberation of independent designers.

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08.03.22

Sighted

In a New Gallery Space, Hollie Bowden Shows Off Her Talent for Sourcing Minimal Maximalist Vintage Objects

London-based interior designer Hollie Bowden is a self-described “minimal maximalist.” Think bare walls and airy, earth-toned environments accented and brought together with a touch of dramatic surrealism. She has a way of adding the surprising elements that wind up feeling completely necessary to any given project. After working as a stylist, florist, and set designer, Bowden launched her own studio in 2013 and has spent the past decade conceiving of dreamy domestic and retail spaces. As an extension and natural progression of her studio work, earlier this summer she opened The Gallery, an appointment-only shop located next to her Shoreditch headquarters.

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08.02.22

Interiors

Armel Soyer’s New Showroom is a Rustic French Fantasy

The showroom is laid out like a home, using the terracotta floor tiles, exposed ceiling beams, and iron handrails as a backdrop for its inaugural exhibition: Design at the Summit, which follows a theme first used by Armel Soyer in Megève three years previous. This second edition brings together a wide variety of the gallery’s clients, with furniture, artwork and sculpture spread across the different rooms as if someone with immaculate taste (and a fairly sizable budget) lives there amongst the collection.

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08.01.22

Q+A

This Brooklyn Designer is Trying to Create a Zero-Waste Studio

Coming from an art background, Nathaniel Wojtalik had no interest in creating furniture that was purely functional and offered no meaning behind it. But through Cultivation Objects, the Brooklyn studio he founded during the pandemic, Wojtalik has been able to find a way to craft intentional narratives by virtue of concept and technique to end up with designs that are beautiful and intriguing, yet still maintain a utilitarian quality.

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07.30.22

Saturday Selects

Week of July 25, 2022

A weekly recap to share with you our favorite links, discoveries, exhibitions, and more from the past seven days. This week: the look for less by Eny Lee Parker, live forever in a funerary urn by BZIPPY, and a double-sided Royere door to die for, please excuse the expression.

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07.28.22

Interiors

Tour the Incredible 1930s and 40s Gio Ponti Interiors Hidden in a 13th-Century Italian University

Between 1934 and 1942, Gio Ponti decorated numerous rooms inside Palazzo Bo — home to the University of Padua, founded in the 13th century — creating one of his most important works in interior design. In fact, the 1940s were critical for Ponti's transformation from his previous styles of Novecento Italiano and Rationalism toward softer mid-century design, which became his trademark after the Second World War. Click through to tour this seminal work with Okolo's Adam Štěch.

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