Out of office: the Wallpaper* editors’ picks of the week

A sequinned showcase

Gabriel Annouka, Senior Designer

For my good friends Cristiano and Paul’s seventeenth anniversary, I took them to the Leigh Bowery retrospective at Tate Modern – my third visit and now my unofficial Sunday service. Cristiano, a drag queen from Brazil, was instantly enchanted, seeing part of his own world reflected and expanded; Paul, who lived in London during Bowery’s era, filled in the stories behind the spectacle.

I still get emotional. Platform boots and glitter-armoured bodysuits lifted our spirits as I devoured every leaflet, promo image and piece of printed archive ephemera, especially the visuals for dancer and choreographer Michael Clark’s productions. Finally seeing excerpts of Charles Atlas’s film Hail the New Puritan (1985-6) and Clark’s Because We Must (1989), with Bowery’s costumes alive in motion, was a revelation. What strikes me each time I see the show is how many of these works came from a circle of mostly young queer creatives – fearless, outrageous and unreasonably inventive. Bowery isn’t just remembered here. He’s alive, sequins and all.

A Scandinavian sojourn

Anna Solomon, Digital Staff Writer

This weekend, I’m popping back to my home from home: Stockholm, where I decamped for a year in my early twenties rather than getting a job. Punishing during winter, there’s nothing like Stockholm in the summer: sprawling days, honey-hued architecture, swims in the archipelago. I'll be checking out Kulturfestivalen (that’s ‘culture festival’ for the polyglots among you) – a five-day celebration of art, music and dance (free, of course – this is Scandinavia) – and staying in an apartment courtesy of Kindred, an up-and-coming home-swapping app that recently listed designer Gustaf Westman’s postmodern-inspired home in the Swedish capital.

A dream workspace

Rosa Bertoli, Global Design Director

As this week I am keeping in touch with the Wallpaper* team virtually, I found hospitality in an Italian office while I wait for my summer holidays to begin. For someone as passionate about design as I am, this temporary location is a dream, full to the brim with Italian workspace classics, including Olivetti typewriters, Michele de Lucchi lamps for Artemide, and colourful Zenith staplers. I am particularly enjoying these Solari Time Keepers (pictured) – made by the local company that first patented the flip clock mechanism and created by architect Gino Valle, these 1960s designs are still going strong (and working beautifully) today.

An urban adventure

Anna Fixsen, US Editor

For me, summer means two things: my apartment gets a single splotch of sunlight, and my Saturday mornings are eaten up by marathon training. Those who know me are well-aware of my annual 26.2-mile quest and understand that my Friday nights are not spent whooping it up at my local, but downing a preternatural amount of pasta and nervously plotting out all the public restrooms along my route.

One of the most incredible public programs in New York is its annual Summer Streets, in which vast stretches of avenues and boulevards throughout the five boroughs are completely open to pedestrians, runners and cyclists on select weekends. This year, the city’s made a whopping 400 blocks car-free, meaning my training routes these last two weeks have taken me nearly the entire length of Manhattan, from the base of the Brooklyn Bridge, through canyons of Midtown skyscrapers and into vibrant stretches of Harlem, Morningside Heights and beyond. This Saturday marks the final Manhattan tour, but you can scope out open streets in Brooklyn and the Bronx on August 23. If you see me suffering on my 19-miler this weekend, please hand me a Gatorade. A high-five will also do the trick.

A jazz legend

Melina Keays, Entertaining Director

I’ve been soaking up the atmosphere at Ronnie Scott’s. If ever a London venue owned the term ‘legendary’, this Soho jazz club does. I am always a little apprehensive about living a legend in case reality falls short of reputation, but fear not – any such apprehensions evaporated from the moment of arrival. All my Ronnie Scott’s expectations were met and exceeded. It’s all there to be seen, heard and enjoyed – the velvet banquette seating, the little red table lamps, attentive table service, the smoky stage (dry ice, not cigarettes these days) and of course, the authentic, moody, mesmerising jazz.

A studio stop-by

Hannah Silver, Art, Culture, Watches & Jewellery Editor

I’ve long admired Henni Alftan’s distinctive portrayal of everyday love rendered in flat and figurative planes, which lend an unsettling otherness to everyday scenes. It was a pleasure, then, to visit her in her studio this week ahead of her exhibition, 'By the Skin of My Teeth', next month at Sprüth Magers, Berlin.

A Californian summer

Charlotte Gunn, Director of Digital Content

I'm back from Los Angeles where I typically spend a good chunk of the summer. This year's highlights included browsing designer vintage at The Curatorial Dept (I'm still thinking about an Issey Miyake two-piece I left on the shelf), indulging in crab beignets at opulent Hollywood restaurant The Benjamin, relying on tattoo artist Sean From Texas to add more ridiculous ink to my arm and watching 80s classic The Lost Boys under a full moon in the Hollywood Forever cemetery. The city's going through some tough times but the people remain resilient.