On the eve of the United States’ semiquincentennial, our August issue celebrates the country’s resilient and rambunctious creative spirit. These are turbulent times for those responsible for its vitality, many of whom are facing threats to their lifestyles and livelihoods. Which is why we have chosen our third annual US Issue to celebrate its culture as an enduring, inspiring force for optimism and change.
For this month’s two cover stories, we visit the Brooklyn home of performance artist Darrell Thorne, and head to the Pacific Palisades on the eve of the reopening of the Eames House to hear how the designers’ family have launched a new foundation in a bid to keep their grandparents’ mission alive.
A painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat hangs in an art-collecting family’s apartment on the 65th floor of New York’s 432 Park Avenue building – one of four US homes we tour in the August issue
We profile a rising generation of young design gallerists who are putting social engagement and community before commerce; we drop in on a London gallery for a group show of seven female New York-based artists that are taking a philosophical approach to the visceral dimensions of human experience; and we survey the American domestic interior across four magnificent dwellings, each as different from each other as the landscapes in which they reside.
Along the way, we take a fashion trip on Route 66, get in line for the opening of a staggering number of new and newly refurbished cultural institutions, and (carefully) raise a martini to the centenary of that seminal cocktail’s signature stemware, a fusion of panache and polish as exacting as any mixologist.
Finally, we bring you our edit of the nation’s most covetable contemporary design, and we task three powerful voices from the worlds of design, fashion and architecture – Murray Moss, Willy Chavarria and Florencia Rodriguez – with delivering their own state of the nation address. Theirs is a clarion call for community, itself a cornerstone of the creative urge to stand up and speak out.
Bill Prince
Editor-in-Chief
The August 2025 issue of Wallpaper* is available in print on newsstands from 10 July 2025, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today
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Experience the cradle of the Renaissance in a new light at Florence’s W hotelFlorence’s palazzi, basilicas and baptistries groan with history. But the city’s new W hotel poses an alternative perspective – one that is distinctly modern
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Wallpaper* Gift Guides: What our director of digital content, Charlotte Gunn, has on her wishlist this yearFrom the year's most-anticipated music biography to stacks of vinyl, these goodies will help you unwind and unplug
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Van Cleef & Arpels celebrates the early flowering of its art deco jewellery designs with an exhibition in TokyoVan Cleef & Arpels nod back to an illustrative Art Deco history with an exhibition celebrating its influence
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New furniture from Maiden Home elevates elemental materials through unique designFinely crafted and exquisitely formed, the New York furniture brand’s latest designs find their perfect showcase at a modernist Californian home
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Wallpaper* USA 400: The people shaping Creative America in 2025Our annual look at the talents defining the country’s creative landscape right now
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Workstead's lanterns combine the richness of silk with a warm glowAn otherworldly lamp collection, the Lantern series by Workstead features raw silk shades and nostalgic silhouettes in three designs
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Can creativity survive in the United States?We asked three design powerhouses to weigh in on this political moment
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Murray Moss: 'We must stop the erosion of our 250-year-old American culture'Murray Moss, the founder of design gallery Moss and consultancy Moss Bureau, warns of cultural trauma in an authoritarian state
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‘You can feel their presence’: step inside the Eameses’ Pacific Palisades residenceCharles and Ray Eames’ descendants are exploring new ways to preserve the designers’ legacy, as the couple’s masterpiece Pacific Palisades residence reopens following the recent LA fires
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‘Boom: Art and Design in the 1940s’ explores the creative resilience of the decadeNoguchi and Nakashima are among those who found expression and innovation in the adversity of the 1940s; take a walk through the Philadelphia Museum of Art exhibition
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Ludmilla Balkis’ organic, earthy ceramics embody the Basque countrysideThe sculptor-ceramicist presents a series inspired by and created from found natural objects in a New York exhibition
