A weekly recap to share with you our favorite links, discoveries, exhibitions, and more from the past seven days. This week: an Art Deco– and Frank Lloyd Wright–inspired textile collab between Block Shop and Sunbrella, two new design hotels for escaping into nature this summer, and a new series of lamps in wicker by Workstead.

Interiors

The French studio Claves is only three years old — partners Laure Gravier and Soizic Fougeront met while both working for Pierre Yovanovitch, and went out on their own together in 2022 — but their work is highly sophisticated right out of the gate. Case in point, this Art Deco townhouse in Paris with the snake-mosaic fireplace of our dreams. Photos: Alice Mesguich  San Francisco interiors duo Studio Ahead are really planting a stake in the bar and restaurant world, their latest project being the diminutive, just-opened SF bistro Side A, whose high-end sound system and extensive vinyl library take inspiration from Japanese listening bars. The designers have enhanced the theme with thoughtful acoustic details like drapery and padded wall panels, plus an aluminum record stand that greets visitors with a glimpse at what’s spinning. Photos: Ekaterina Ismestieva

Discoveries

When I saw these photos of Workstead’s newest lighting collection, Woven, my first thought was that wicker can often look a little fusty or — worse — boho, and I’m impressed that the studio managed to avoid both scenarios with this pendant and pair of sconces. My second thought, though, was who is their prop stylist? These shots are so good! A collab so natural we should have seen it coming: Block Shop and Sunbrella, launched in April with a palette of graphic-print fabrics for use indoors and out. Block Shop has been selling upholstery fabric by the yard for years now, block-printed by hand in India like all of their housewares and accessories, but teaming up with Sunbrella gave them the opportunity to make performance fabrics for the first time — hard-wearing textiles that are a little more life-proof. There are a few brights and pastels, but the browns are admittedly my favorites, particularly in the more Art Deco–inflected styles; the entire collection is also loosely inspired by the shapes found in Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock house in Los Angeles.
Really enjoying the unexpected work of Milan’s Clare Duport — during Salone last month she actually debuted some new pillows / Soft Sculptures in edgy, futuristic shapes, but we were actually late to the party on her Soft Blankets, which are puffy quilts that you can use on your bed, but are mostly meant to hang on the wall. Another whimsical Milan moment that didn’t make our roundups last month: a piece by Formafantasma for Pierrier-Jouet called Oecanthus, but that I fondly referred to — after attending a really lovely lunch the brand held at Horto to celebrate its ongoing collaboration with the Milan design duo — as “the cricket box.” The piece is a traveling sound installation that, when opened as shown above, plays the mellodious chirps of the Oecanthus pellucens cricket, amplified through the piece of wood suspended in the middle. The sounds were recorded last year in the brand’s vineyards, where Formafantasma have been undertaking a two-year research project to help foster the area’s ecological diversity. Last week the New York design gallery Verso opened a six-month pop-up residency in Los Angeles at West Hollywood’s So-Too design space, kicking off the stay with an exhibition of furniture by Brazilian-American designer Pali Xisto Cornelsen. The tables, stools, lamps, and room dividers are inspired by the art of his father, Jejo Cornelsen, and were created in collaboration with him. They’re “carefully coated in paints reflective of the vibrantly toned, natural-derived clay pigments that have garnered [Jejo] renown since the 1990s,” the gallery notes.

Hotels

I’ve been lucky enough to briefly stay at Norway’s Juvet Landscape Hotel — you know, the one featured in Succession — twice now, yet spending more time there still remains a fantasy of mine. Which is why I was so excited to learn of the impending opening (May 16) of the Prospect resort in the Berkshires: its 49 large-windowed, individual cabins nestled into a lakeside forest remind me of Juvet, but are obviously a lot closer to home. Prospect is geared entirely towards those sublime nature views, with the interiors themselves being relatively simple; but of course there are no shortage of creature comforts too, like a pool, a coming-soon high-end restaurant called Cliff House, and a mere 10-minute drive to the center of Great Barrington. Get ready to see it on your friends’ Instagrams this summer (including ours!). For our West Coast summer adventurers, the new spot to check out is Hotel Wren, in the desert town of Twentynine Palms. Yes, everything in the Joshua Tree vicinity tends to be beige and nature-inflected, but so few of those spaces have an actual design pedigree like the Wren, whose elevated interiors are by the LA-based Manola Studio. The hotel was previously a 1940s roadside lodge (albeit one with amazing steel casement windows), and now has been warmed up with details like a hand-carved wooden built-ins by Nik Gelormino and a leafy wall mural painted by Kim Swift. The bedrooms, with their vaulted ceilings, feel really serene.

Shopping

Okay while I know this is not the typical Sight Unseen fare, I had to call out these crazy new inflatable “tanning pool loungers” by Funboy, because the reality is that I will be spending the majority of my summer not at a glamorous resort but at my Brooklyn apartment, which gets very hot, but has a roof. If you’re like me and have a sliver of outdoor space and not enough summer plans, think of this as a PSA: This thing can be filled up with water, so even if you have no water to float it on, it acts as a cross between a tanning lounge and a kiddie pool. Which I, for one, will be grateful for come New York’s 96-degree afternoons! Another colorful new item that I certainly need — I too take off my silver jewelry once a day, and need somewhere to stash it — that maybe you might too, is the new Cache Box by Kenyon Yeh for Areaware. The ball on top slides out the hidden compartment, but the channel it slides in also acts as a slot for depositing small things into the box directly, like rings or coins. Check out all three color combos on Areaware’s site.