01.30.25

At Home With

Inside the Home and Showroom of Oculus’s Alfie di Trolio, London’s Coolest New Vintage Design Dealer

“If you asked a child to sketch what their fantasy chair or bed looked like, they might draw something that looks like an Oculus product,” says Alfie di Trolio, who deals vintage furniture and objects under the name Oculus and works as a set designer in London. It’s a pretty perfect description of the pieces he seeks out for selling — handmade, imperfect, a little wonky and weird. “They’re functional pieces but there’s something super decorative and super silly; often the scale is a bit more exaggerated than it needs to be,” he adds. Guided mostly by intuition, di Trolio gravitates toward metal work, specifically wrought iron, which allows for “these overblown, extravagant forms.” Weighty wooden pieces are hardly out of the question, though, like “chunky old cabinets where you feel like someone’s chopped down a tree and carved inside.” So, what makes for an Oculus object? There’s a feeling of excitement di Trolio gets, a tumbling curiosity around how the object came to be. “It’s like, I can’t imagine who made you! What were they doing? Were they in therapy?"

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01.27.25

Interiors

Always Add a Bit of Black is a Rule of Thumb in Interior Design — This Space Proves Why

A gorgeous villa filled with beautiful furniture and objects is always a welcome sight. But this particular private home near Paris is an exercise in dark and light, showing exactly how the right balance of black furniture, objects and details within a bright, neutral space can be used to the fullest effect — in every room of the house. It was designed by French-Austrian designer Katja Pargger, who custom created a handful of the pieces in the double-height lounge including two semi-circular black leather sofas that organize the geometry of the space, and surround her enameled ceramic coffee tables.

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01.25.25

Saturday Selects

Week of January 20, 2025

A weekly Saturday recap to share with you our favorite links, discoveries, exhibitions, and more from the past seven days. This week: hits from Maison & Objet, the first of the year's design fairs, a new showroom in Chiang Mai, and Christofle trades its traditional silver for an oxidation-resistant aluminum in a new series of candelabras. 

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01.22.25

Up and Coming

This Self-Taught Designer’s Dark Wood Furniture is Imbued with Spirituality

It wasn’t until the pandemic that South American designer Rafael Triboli found his calling. Triboli grew up in Porto Alegre, in the south of Brazil, and studied communications at a university there. He later moved to São Paulo and worked as an art director and scenography designer. But during lockdown, which forced him back home for a period, he looked inward and delved into his own artistic practice: signing up for free courses; discovering influences in artists like Robert Rauschenberg, Donald Judd, and Eileen Gray; and, eventually, experimenting in a friend’s wood shop. With the time and opportunity to research, learn, and experiment in the world of art and design, the Brazilian creative quickly learned that his favorite woods to work with are the darker, harder varieties — such as mahogany, imbuia, and ipe — that are native to Brazil. He uses these to produce simple seats, benches, daybeds, dressers, trunks and tables that wouldn’t look out of place in a friary – albeit a very stylish one.

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08.16.23

Sight Unseen Collection

These Three Studios are Redefining Cool Outdoor Furniture for a New Generation

Until the middle of last century, most outdoor furniture was serving Period Piece, “with stamped-out metal, bunches of flowers and leaves,” as the late designer Richard Schultz wrote in an essay reprinted in his 2019 book, Form Follows Technique: A Design Manifesto. But lately, we’ve been clocking a growing number of contemporary designers taking up the torch of inventive outdoor furniture design. It tracks alongside the growing collective awareness that nature is precious and that cultivating our feelings of belonging within nature is more important than ever. We caught up with three exciting talents on the scene.

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01.18.25

Saturday Selects

Week of January 13, 2025

A weekly Saturday recap to share with you our favorite links, discoveries, exhibitions, and more from the past seven days. This week: an LA pizzeria that references Italian modernism, silver cutlery with tiny-ball handles, and glossy furniture resembling Jell-o. 

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01.16.25

Sighted

The Debut Collection From Studio Hanrahan Melds Ancient Forms and Contemporary Aesthetics

One of the best things about Sight Unseen turning 15 this year is having an archive at our fingertips by which to chart the growth of certain artists who have captured our interest over the years. Take Ryan Hanrahan, an Australian designer whose work we first published more than a decade ago. Hanrahan has been involved in several different ventures since then, including Addition Studios, a ritual-focused wellness brand he sold at the tail end of COVID. But looking at each one — particularly in the context of Text the Sun, the first collection he's releasing under his new studio name, Studio Hanrahan — you see the obvious through lines: the geometric shapes, the love for elemental materials such as marble and metal, the melding of ancient forms and contemporary aesthetics, an abiding interest in waterjet–cut perforations. Hanrahan calls Text the Sun "a playful recalibration" of those interests, and the results are lovely.

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01.15.25

Excerpt: Exhibition

In Barcelona, a New Exhibition Showcasing 26 Up-and-Comers on the Collectible Design Scene

Vasto, a Barcelona gallery for emerging design, originally began as an online platform in 2020. But within a couple of years, founder Carmen Riestra had opened the physical space Casa Vasto, creating an immersive environment for up-and-coming artists and designers. Collectible Barcelona, curated by Riestra, showcases pieces from 26 international designers, putting them in dialogue with one another – a conversation that’s both pointed and wide-ranging in its exploration of materials and its conceptual underpinnings.

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01.11.25

Saturday Selects

Week of January 6, 2024

A weekly Saturday recap to share with you our favorite links, discoveries, exhibitions, and more from the past seven days. This week: A conceptual fashion space hidden in a Tashkent street market, joyful ceramic candleholders shaped like sardines and bananas, and a new collection of lamps inspired by the Triadic Ballet.

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01.10.25

American Design Hot List

The 2024 American Design Hot List, Part V

This week we announced our 12th annual American Design Hot List, Sight Unseen’s editorial award for the names to know now in American design. We’re devoting an entire week to interviews with this year’s honorees — get to know the fifth group of Hot List designers here (including Wretched Flowers, whose chainmail floral floor lamp is the slightly goth hit of decor we didn't know we needed.) 

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01.09.25

American Design Hot List

The 2024 American Design Hot List, Part IV

This week we announced our 12th annual American Design Hot List, Sight Unseen’s editorial award for the names to know now in American design. We’re devoting an entire week to interviews with this year’s honorees — get to know the fourth group of Hot List designers here (including Parts and Labor Design, above, whose founders launched the stellar furniture collection Known Work early last year.) 

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01.08.25

American Design Hot List

The 2024 American Design Hot List, Part III

This week we announced our 12th annual American Design Hot List, Sight Unseen’s editorial award for the names to know now in American design. We’re devoting an entire week to interviews with this year’s honorees — get to know the third group of Hot List designers here (including recent RISD grad Michelle Jiaxin Huang, whose futuristic works in steel are pictured above).

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