Acqua di Parma has unveiled its new holiday collection, created by India Mahdavi.

The French-Iranian architect and designer (named Wallpaper’s Designer of the Year in 2023) is renowned for her expressive use of vivid colour, which spans furniture, interiors and hospitality.

India Mahdavi designs Acqua di Parma’s 2024 holiday collection using colourful Murano glass

In 2022, Mahdavi refreshed her work for Sketch London’s Gallery, transforming the pastel pink decor with a wash of warm yellow to mark the viral restaurant’s 20th anniversary.

Of course, Acqua di Parma does not shy away from colour either. The storied fragrance company’s own shade of yellow – referencing the ochre façades of Parma’s buildings – is instantly recognisable. Recent projects celebrating this signature shade include the Acqua di Parma Yellow Cafe in Seoul and the ceramic ‘Chapeau!’ candle, both by Dorothée Meilichzon.

For the 2024 holiday collection, Mahdavi has expanded Acqua di Parma’s palette, and reinterprets codes of Italian architecture through a set of patterned, limited-edition Murano glass fragrance bottles.

‘There is a parme colour, a lilac shade which I reimagined in my own way, which also nods to the brand’s name,’ Mahdavi tells Wallpaper*. ‘Amber and yellow both capture the brand’s identity and Italy’s vibrant sun. Tartan, dots and stripe patterns evoke the origins of Acqua di Parma, which began as a tailor’s perfumery in 1916. I drew inspiration from some of the traditional geometric patterns found in the suit flannels. Geometric patterns are also part of my grammar.’

There are 12 bottles in total, all crafted by Salviate, a Venitian glassblowing furnace dating back to 1859. ‘Acqua di Parma has a longstanding tradition of working hand in hand with Italian craft for their holiday season,’ says Mahdavi. ‘Salviati is one of the best glassblowers in Murano with a rich heritage. [The Acqua di Parma holiday collection] is the encounter of two famous Italian houses that meet through my vision.’

The range also expands to home fragrances and decor, with 25 individually numbered vases and a set of three glass baubles, plus glass jars for candles and diffusers. The latter features coloured stripes, which correspond to three exclusive holiday scents: yellow for ‘Panettone’, amber for ‘Caminetto’ and green for ‘Bosco’.

‘A collaboration is always two worlds in dialogue, a conversation between two identities,’ concludes Mahdavi. ‘Acqua di Parma is perceived as a timeless Italian brand, and I was interested to see if I could take it on an artistically crafted journey, working with the best master blowers from Murano.’

acquadiparma.com

My first evening at Adrère Amellal, in the Egyptian oasis of Siwa, was an unforgettable experience. When I arrived in the pitch-black night, I was guided by gas lights and bonfires through the stars and the silence. We were led to the most beautiful setting of a rock formation creating a natural open-sky dining room with a spectacular view over a white mountain. It was a chilly evening, as it can be in the desert, and as we sat, I could feel the gentle warmth of the braseros under the tablecloth. The table-setting was sophisticated and simple at the same time. What came after was nothing less than magical. I felt I belonged to planet Earth. To the universe.

Founded by Dr Mounir Neamatalla, Adrère Amellal is an ecolodge built from kershef – a mixture of salt and mud – set in the most beautiful, remote landscape. It resembles a vernacular village at the foot of the white mountain of Adrère Amellal, facing the Sahara desert. All the vegetables are picked from surrounding organic gardens. The food is cooked in wooden ovens and served in earth pots glazed with honey and egg yolk, which was a technique used by the pharaohs. The cuisine is a modern take on ancient Egyptian food, reviving flavours with sycamore fruit, dates or minted basil, all of which are locally available. Every evening, dinner is served in a different location chosen according to moonlight with a ceiling of stars above. The grounds are lit by candles and bonfires, engaging all the senses and creating a moment of magic that remains forever.

To me, a good restaurant involves three types of comfort: visual, physical and emotional. Authenticity is important, as is local produce, good service, and anything that enhances the experience. Customers want to feel the care and love that is put into a restaurant. Sometimes, paying small attention to details can add up to create a suspended moment of happiness.

Hovering bookshelves. Mycelium-inspired surfaces. Angular trays. Hanging lights. Sculptural ladders. In-between shades. Tiles are reimagined in textures and tones, forms and functions, by Alternative Artefacts Danto (A.a. Danto), a new Japanese brand that aims to redefine interior paradigms through a layered exploration of the possibilities of tiles in daily life.

Creatively directed by Teruhiro Yanagihara Studio (TYS), A.a. Danto made its debut with two new collections – Tiles and Editions – during Milan Design Week 2024, with India Mahdavi as the first international collaborator. Cracked, floating, speckled, nuanced, hanging: the new tiles venture far beyond the conventional limitations of bathroom and kitchen coverings. Instead, a dialogue between tiles and the spaces they inhabit unfolds in A.a. Danto’s creations, harmonising a soft handcrafted atmosphere with mass production capabilities – or, as Mahdavi puts it, 'wabi sabi on an industrial scale'.

India Mahdavi and A.a. Dantopresent 'Tiles'

'Danto uses natural materials that are fired, so have a similar feeling to ceramics,' explains Teruhiro Yanagihara, who is also creative director and designer of 1616 / arita japan. 'They’re soft, warm, crafted. We want to explore the potential for these tiles as an interior material.'

The new brand is the latest chapter for Danto, one of Japan’s oldest mass producers of tiles. For more than 130 years, Danto has produced tiles on Awajishima, a mountainous nature-soaked island in the Seto Inland Sea. With its tile business evolving from Awajishima’s acclaimed local ceramics tradition known as Minpei-yaki in the late 19th century, innovation is deeply rooted in Danto’s DNA, as reflected in its long history of soil experimentation, avant-garde designs and quality mass production techniques.

The name of the new brand – and its debut installation in Milan, Archaeology of Tiles – reflect the ideas that underpin A.a. Danto: it aims to tap into its richly layered heritage to create a new standard for tiles moving into the future.

Key to this are Danto’s mass production technology and production innovations – from more than a century of blending soils from regions across Japan to create a spectrum of textures and colours; to the handcrafted feel yet carefully controlled precision of its industrial production techniques.

'Danto has long been a pioneer in Japan’s tile culture, with countless innovations as it adapts to current times,' Yanagihara tells Wallpaper*. 'The concept of A.a. Danto lies in unravelling its history and creating a new era of tiles.

'It’s about connecting the past to the present and the future. We want to tap into Danto’s technology by using various raw materials to create new tiles. We also aim to make more versatile interiors, by using continuous tiles and grout adapted to any size space, creating new three-dimensional possibilities.'

Tiles is a collection taps into inspired by Danto’s heritage. It aims to create a new standard for Danto’s tiles, editing and reinventing the company’s rich historical archives, with the goal of creating a timeless library of tiles for use in architectural spaces.

One Tiles series designed by TYS – which is based in Kobe, Japan, and Arles, France – possesses a shifting palette of in-between shades that gently enhances the natural expression of the raw material.

These tiles were created by mixing different soils excavated from regions across Japan, which were then blended to create a micro-shifting spectrum of tones, without the need for glazing.

The end result is a minimalist collection of softly matte in-between shades with an unusual depth of colour infusing the material itself – from light cloud whites and dusty blues to airy moss greens.

For Mahdavi, textural surfaces inspired by nature feature in her Tiles series. After an exploration of Danto’s history and production techniques at its factories on Awajishima last year, Mahdavi imagined a series of tiles whose surfaces gently reflect the irregular beauty of the natural world, despite the mass production processes that bring them to life – with names such as Cracked, Freckles, Crisscross.

Among them is Mycelium, with its organically crystal-like surface created through Danto’s unique technique of making tiles by layering thin pieces of clay – before the top surface is blasted with fine clay or glaze with meticulous precision, evoking an unusually uneven beauty more commonly found in the handcrafted.

'One of the possibilities that Danto offers is to apply up to three layers of glazing on one single surface, which allows the creation of effects, mostly imitating nature – the wabi sabi on an industrial scale,' says Mahdavi.

'We also experimented with reactions produced by the firing process, creating a certain degree of uncertainty that materialises into beautiful irregularities and variations on surfaces that evoke a different kind of nature.'

The Editions collection is more experimental, as reflected in A.a. Danto’s launch exhibition Archaeology of Tiles in 5VIE in Milan. Scattered among the atmospheric history-etched interiors of an 8th century former residence, a series of Editions installations included TYS-designed ceramic objects and furniture components – from a floating single-piece bookcase, a circular table and a hanging tubular pendant light to the minimalist lines and angles of a tray.

Punctuating the interiors further were eight ladders created by Mahdavi for the exhibition – each wrapped entirely in one of her eight new tiles designs, evoking a series of contrasting surfaces that are connected yet unique.

'I very much like the symbol of the ladder,” explains Mahdavi. “It’s a shape turned towards the sky. It’s all about rising from the ground up – which, in a way, is what ceramics are about, since their substance comes straight from the earth.' A.a. Danto also aims to revitalise Awajishima, Danto’s island birthplace and ongoing HQ, with two key factories on its southern shores.

'I hope that international architects and interior designers will come to Awajishima and develop original tiles,” says Yanagihara. “We want Danto’s tiles to exist in spaces outside Japan – and become alternative artefacts, creating a connection between Awajishima and the world.'

India Mahdavi's tiles for Danto are on view from 16-21 April during Milan Design Week 2024

Via Cesare Correnti, 14
Milan

aa-danto.com

A version of this article appears in the May 2024 issue of Wallpaper* available in print, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

India Mahdavi lets us into her world, giving us a glimpse into her daily rituals and the small things she loves. Wallpaper's Designer of the Year 2023, Mahdavi's expressive output includes furniture, objects and interiors defined by a strong sense of colour and forms that often defy tradition by imagining new silhouettes for our everyday objects. 

Scenographic in her output, Mahdavi is often remembered for her staging of Sketch's Gallery, an all-pink room recently revisited in collaboration with artist Yinka Shonibare. But her work has been stretching far and wide, with projects including an interpretation of Rome's Villa Medici interiors and variations on traditional furniture codes through an ongoing collaboration with Gebrüder Thonet Vienna.

Mahdavi offers us a peek into her Paris home, and tells us about her favourite objects, books, music and more. 

Interview: at home with India Mahdavi

Wallpaper*: Where do you live? Can you tell us about your street, and neighbourhood?

India Mahdavi: I share my time between my apartment in the 7th arrondissement in Paris and my house down in Arles. The 7th is a residential area close to Saint-Germain and rue de Grenelle is one of the longest streets in Paris - a 10 min walk to Saint-Germain and 30 min from Orly airport. Ideal.

W*: What do you like about living here?

IM: My apartment has a great view overlooking a garden - I love being in the centre of the city and enjoying the silence of the countryside. 

W*: How would you describe your home?

IM: An L-shaped flat where one room takes you to another with the charm of Parisian spaces – quite unpractical crooked, Versailles parquet floors and Neo-Grec mouldings from the 30s. 

I moved in 27 years ago when I was pregnant with my son Miles. It amasses the different layers of my life, furnished mainly with my prototypes and other vintage pieces and objects that I have gathered over the years and through my travels. Somehow, it has beautifully absorbed all the periods of my life and has become my personal landscape. 

W*: What is a favourite room or corner?

IM: I have the smallest kitchen with a little corner next to the window, where I created a suspended garden overlooking another. 

I have placed an orange velvet screen and a yellow oval table, checkered curtains and a glass light suspension like a tiny cool dining room. My friends love to be there - we squeeze in 4 for dinner. 

W*: What’s the story behind your favourite piece of furniture?

IM: Let me tell you about my Bishop – it was originally conceived as a wood turned bar stool for a club I designed in NY’s meatpacking district in the early 2000s. A few years later, it made its reappearance as a glazed ceramic stool in Mexico City’s Condesa DF Hotel I designed for Grupo Habita and became my signature piece ever since. 

Over the years, the Bishop has been derived and expanded on at different scales and with different accessories, but my favourite of them all is the Apple Blossom Baby Bishop that came from my collaboration with the French manufacturer, Émaux de Longwy – they applied the ancestral cloisonné technique to lace my Bishop with their stunning floral motif – it prevails as an intricate haute couture version of the Bishop that seeks to modernize and sustain an ancient know-how.

W*: How do you start your days?

IM: My days usually start with a coffee in bed - listening to the matinale on the France Inter radio station. If (and when) the news induce too much anxiety, I start reading.

W*: What do you do to relax?

IM: Sit by the fire in the living room, read a book and listen to music.

W*: What do you collect?

IM: I don't feel I am a collector - I just buy stuff that I like - mostly furniture art or tableware, objects that surround me and give me a sense of joy.

W*: What is the last object you bought?

IM: A pink ceramic basket by artist Audrey Ballacchino I discovered at the Artorama fair in Marseille. I just bought Small Fires, an epic in the kitchen by Rebecca May Johnson.

W*: Where and when do you find your best ideas and inspirations?

IM: In my dreams.

W*: What are you reading at the moment, or what is the last book you read?

IM: I am reading several books at the same time - I just finished "Nina Simone's gum" by my friend Warren Ellis – light and fun. And “Histoire naturelle de l’architecture” by friend and architect Philippe Rahm – architecture through the perception of the human body.

W*: What’s on your playlist?

IM: A wide variety of melodies that range from Melody Nelson by Serge Gainsbourg to Chopin’s preludes by way of Miles Davis, Dave Brubeck or Duke Ellington. Baraye by Shervin Hajipour is also one I often listen to.

W*: What is your favourite meal of the day, and why?

IM: Dinner of course - it's the meal for which I meet with my friends to just relax and laugh.

W*: If Wallpaper* came for dinner, what would you cook?

IM: I would probably cook my favourite Persian meal: wild cherry rice with lemon and saffron chicken. Rose water ice cream for dessert.

W*: What has been your most meaningful collaboration recently?

IM: The refurbishment of the Villa Medici in Rome. It was such an honor to be invited by director Sam Stourdzé to refurbish the Villa’s Piano Nobile – and quite intimidating to intervene after artists like Balthus or Richard Peduzzi. The challenge was to revive the essence of the Villa without overpowering the space’s long history and heritage. With the help of the finest French and Italian artisans, we created imposing and contemporary furniture that I juxtaposed with pieces from the Mobilier National’s archival collection and sought to free the Villa from its palatial label towards a fresher living, thinking and building space.

W*: What is your favourite place, anywhere in the world, and why?

IM: I love my place in the Oasis of Siwa in the Egyptian desert, where I designed and built a house made of Kershef (salt blocks and mud). The whole place is illuminated by candles and it’s one of the most magical places I have ever visited.

W*: Where was a place you visited recently that inspired you?

IM: I find Rome to be a very inspiring city with its everlasting beauty. I discover new places every time I return. Lately, I visited Giacomo Balla’s fantasy apartment which contrasts my latest visit to Giorgio de Chirico’s apartment and studio in Campo Marzio. But I’m really looking forward to my next discovery, visiting the foundation Zinsou in Cotonou, Benin.

W*: What is an upcoming project that you can tell us about?

IM: For the first time, I am working on a contemporary and modern art museum in Trondheim, Norway, opening in 2025, and an artist’s residence in Arles, with Maja Hoffman (among others).

W*: What advice would you give to the next generation of designers?

IM: Hard work, humility and curiosity.

india-mahdavi.com

‘Pierre Bonnard: Designed by India Mahdavi’ is the latest blockbuster exhibition at Melbourne’s NGV, and creates an unlikely pairing between the French post-impressionist painter and the Tehran-born architect and designer – and winner of Designer of the Year at the 2023 Wallpaper* Design Awards.

Presented in collaboration with Musée d'Orsay, NGV’s exhibition features more than 100 works by Pierre Bonnard that illustrate late-19th and early-20th-century France, among them paintings, drawings, prints, photographs and decorative objects. However, it is arguably Mahdavi’s captivating scenography that steals the show.

Mahdavi explodes details from Bonnard’s works and recreates his iridescent palette as psychedelic wallpapers, creating an immersive environment within which to introduce Bonnard to a new generation. Mahdavi has also incorporated other domestic details into the exhibition design to evoke the wistful domestic intimacy for which Bonnard is renowned, such as window openings that frame the view into adjacent galleries and bespoke furniture for lounging. 

The exhibition also features early cinema by the Lumière brothers, and artworks by Bonnard’s contemporaries, including Maurice Denis, Félix Vallotton and Édouard Vuillard. 

‘Pierre Bonnard: Designed by India Mahdavi ’is on view until 8 October 2023

National Gallery of Victoria - NGV
180 St Kilda Road
Melbourne

ngv.vic.gov.au

The grand Villa Medici sits in a privileged position on the top of the Pincian Hill in the centre of Rome. From its arched entranceway, leering over the cascade of white marble that makes up the Spanish Steps, the entirety of the city unfolds at your feet. Built in the 16th century, it was once the private home of Cardinal Ferdinando de Medici. Constructed in the Mannerist style, its frescoed walls and ceilings – rendered by some of the Renaissance’s most revered names – make up some of the most handsome decoration in the ancient capital. And now, thanks to India Mahdavi (Wallpaper’s Designer of the Year 2023), its rooms have been updated with a colourful and contemporary spin.

Re-enchanting Villa Medici: from Fendi to India Mahdavi

Since 1803, the villa has been the base of the French Academy, a home-away-from-home for artists, artisans and historians to stay and soak up the culture of the Italian capital. In 2022, the institute partnered with Mobilier National, which oversees the conservation and restoration of historic French furniture, to slowly reinvent the rooms utilised by their residency programme, beginning with a makeover of six reception salons in December by designer Kim Jones and Silvia Venturini Fendi. 

The latest ‘re-enchantment’, unveiled in April 2023, saw Mahdavi animate six new spaces, including Cardinal Ferdinando de Medici’s private apartments and three rooms newly named in tribute to the villa’s most noteworthy guests, the Debussy Room, the Galileo Room and a salon named for composer Lili Boulanger.

To realise the fresh re-styling, Mahdavi called on artisans across France and Italy to fashion furniture, craft tiles and weave textiles and tapestries for the occasion. In the Debussy and Galileo bedrooms, for instance, the master craftspeople at Maison Craman-Lagarde, known for their skill in marquetry, translated a colour-block pattern by Mahdavi into a four poster bed and matching shelves. 

Meanwhile, in Medici’s apartments, carpet-maker Manufacture Robert Four produced a geometric green and burgundy rug Mahdavi says was inspired by the view of the villa’s sprawling garden just outside the window, around which she clustered her Bishop stools like pieces on a chessboard.

Elsewhere, the interventions were decidedly light-touch: a flash of colour in the form of new upholstery on pieces from the Mobilier National’s archive, including a sofa and armchairs by Jean-Albert Lesage in saffron-toned Dedar fabric; restoring the wall decorations by the Modernist painter Balthus, a former director of the academy; and the addition of new paintings and artworks, including portraits of Boulanger and other notable guests.

Mahdavi’s makeover marks the second of three chapters of the ‘Re-enchanting Villa Medici’ project, the last of which will be unveiled later this year after an open call for projects.

villamedici.it
india-mahdavi.com

WINNER: DESIGNER OF THE YEAR 2023

India Mahdavi 

India Mahdavi is Wallpaper* Designer of the Year 2023.

Perhaps India Mahdavi’s most iconic interior, The Gallery at Sketch got a makeover earlier this year. The French-Iranian architect transformed the candy pink paradise she created with David Shrigley in 2014 into a more subdued space, in collaboration with artist Yinka Shonibare and with contributions from African craftspeople, who created unique objects and textiles for the interior.

The evolution of the Sketch interiors is a testament to Mahdavi’s ability to infuse her designs with colour and curves, but also her ability to build on an idea and transform her own work through collaboration.

Take the Bishop stool: originally conceived for New York private members club APT, its sculptural design in turned wood has since been interpreted in a multitude of colours, patterns and materials, from floral to ceramic and metal. In 2022, the stool was part of ‘Achromia' at Athens’ Carwan Gallery, which offered an overview of Mahdavi’s most iconic designs rendered in white marble, demonstrating her ability to twist her approach while maintaining her strong creative identity. 

Colour is the starting point of Mahdavi’s designs (‘an expression of who I am’, she says), which, combined with the experience of a space or object and a sense of joie de vivre, forms the basis for all of her work. This approach is evident in her collaboration with Swedish company Svenskt Tenn. To pay tribute to Josef Frank’s legacy, she created an immersive interior for the Stockholm gallery: titled ‘Frankly Yours’, the project saw Mahdavi experimenting with the legacy of the brand, using iconic prints and objects, as well as new pewter pieces designed for the occasion. 

‘I have always practised design at the crossroads of other disciplines such as scenography, film, decor, furniture, and product design, exploring as many opportunities that were given to me to design, decorate, remodel or reveal a space, creating new experiences, embellishing life,’ she says in the foreword of her monograph, which came out in 2021. ‘But if there is a common denominator to all my projects, it’s the necessity of creating a sense of joy, a joie de vivre that I like to convey by using the primary colours of my emotions to listen, to understand, to feel, to respond to an environment.’

‘India's vibrant work challenges its context each time while maintaining a personal identity without repetition,’ says Eleni Petaloti, one half of Objects of Common Interest, who helped judge the Wallpaper* Design Awards this year as well as being nominated as Designers of the Year in 2022.

‘India Mahdavi is somebody I've always admired so much,’ added fellow judge Julianne Moore. ‘Her use of colour, which is way out of my grasp, is just extraordinary. I wish I was as brave as India Mahdavi.’

india-mahdavi.com

SHORTLIST

Yinka Ilori

‘Yinka Ilori: Parable of Happiness’, the British Nigerian designer’s first major museum display (15 September 2022 – 25 June 2023, at London’s Design Museum), charts his journey through furniture, graphic design and architecture. The display comes at a particularly exciting time for Ilori, who this year was tasked with redesigning the afternoon tea experience at the Bulgari Hotel as well as creating a new playground in east London – two projects that show his playful approach across different environments. Ilori was also aptly nominated cognac house Courvoisier’s Ambassador of Joy, creating an installation that showed in New York, Johannesburg and London with more activities planned for 2023, and created his first permanent installation in Berlin, a pavilion titled ‘Filtered Rays’ that explores  the relationship between light and colour. He also unveiled his new studio, a space imbued with his signature colourful compositions. ‘The colours are very joyful and really help set the tone for the day,’ he tells us. ‘I've used them to create a really positive, happy environment. I hope that it gives everyone in the office time to dream and imagine.’

yinkailori.com

Stephen Burks

American designer Stephen Burks has been a pioneering force on the international design circuit since he first established his studio in 1997. Known for his trademark style of uniting industrial design with aspects of handcraft, Burks has forged a path for other American designers to follow, while establishing his own distinctive creative signature. No stranger to working with global manufacturers like Cappellini, Dedon, Missoni and Roche Bobois, Burks is particularly successful in his embrace of cultural diversity, be it supporting craftspeople from around the globe or drawing from his own experience as a Black American designer. Burks’ pioneering point of view is currently being celebrated at the High Museum in Atlanta – his first major institutional show in over a decade (until 5 March 2023). The Brooklyn-based designer also unveiled a colourful installation for the kitchen and bathroom fixture brand, Graff, in Chicago, showcasing its signature taps against an array of handcrafted textures and finishes. This is coupled with an ongoing collaboration with students of Berea College in Kentucky, titled ‘Crafting Diversity’ and sold exclusively at DWR, with full proceeds benefiting the college. These projects are testament to Burks’ ability to translate  the value of human relationships into functional forms. Writer: Pei-Ru Keh

stephenburksmanmade.com

 Studiopepe 

In 2022, Studiopepe debuted a collection with Italian furniture maker Visionnaire, inspired by the five senses and featuring tongue-like lamps as well as fringed mirrors inspired by alchemy. After a few conversations with studio founders Arianna Lelli Mami and Chiara Di Pinto, Wallpaper* commissioned the pair to work on a 2023 horoscope that marked our magazine’s first foray into astrology. Studiopepe’s ability to infuse their furniture designs with their personal interests – from astrology to anthropology and the history of objects – culminated in ‘Temenos’, their first collectible design collection presented at Milan Design Week 2022 in a dramatic installation in collaboration with Paris’ Galerie Philia. Further pieces by the duo this year have included furniture for long-term collaborators Tacchini and Baxter, a pop-up shop in Rome for Hermès, and lighting for Contardi. 

studiopepedesign.it

Kwangho Lee 

Originally trained in metal art and design at Seoul’s Hongik University, Kwangho Lee created a few furniture pieces for his 2007 graduation show, which caught the attention of a number of design galleries, kickstarting his career in furniture design. A regular fixture of the collectible design circuit, in the past year Lee has expanded his scope working with brands to create functional furniture that includes the ‘AA’ bench for Finnish design brand Vaarnii, and the ‘Hunk’ chair and ‘Glyph’ tables for Swedish brand Hem, inspired by some of his earlier works. He has also worked with Korean marble producer Total Marble, creating a chair that features a marble marquetry technique featuring a knotted design – a nod to his ‘Obsession’ series defined by intricate woven patterns as the base for furniture and product designs. ‘The joy of making is central to explaining my work,’ he told Wallpaper* this year, as we discussed his collection for Hem. ‘The key effort has been to translate the handmade quality of my work into a larger scale of production. And I think that it’s been a unique challenge for me, trying to find this new way of working. This whole process has been just trying out new methods and seeing where each iteration takes us. I’m very excited to see how this goes.’

kwangholee.com

The winners of the Wallpaper* Design Awards 2023 are revealed in the February 2023 issue, available from 5 January in print, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

Sketch needs little introduction. The London restaurant, bar and art destination founded by entrepreneur Mourad Mazouz in 2002 is best known for its imaginative interiors, created over the years in collaboration with leading designers and artists including India Mahdavi, Noé Duchaufour-Lawrance, Martin Creed, David Shrigley and Yinka Shonibare among many more, with contributions to the spaces by Mazouz himself.

Sketch: 20 years of creative experimentation 

Sketch was born out of a creative friendship between Mazouz and French chef Pierre Gagnaire. Together, they opened the space as ‘a destination for experimentation’, taking over a 1779 building designed by James Wyatt. A storied location, 9 Conduit street hosted a variety of institutions over the years, including the Royal Institute of British Architects and a headquarters of the suffragette movement in the early 20th century, while at some point it served as the London atelier of Christian Dior. 

‘There was never a mission for Sketch – this is the same for all my restaurants,’ says Mazouz. ‘The ideas started to emerge as I walked through the building, making me shiver in excitement and fear. The burden felt enormous – how could I bring back this 18th-century Grade II* townhouse to life?’

Mazouz continues: ‘It took me four years to open Sketch. I gathered everything I knew at the time in one place: contemporary art, video, cooking, music and drinks. There was no specific outcome or mission.’

Each space at Sketch features a distinctive character and since 2002, has been handed over to a designer or artist to create a unique interior concept. 

'Each and every designer and artist brought something to Sketch; this is what Sketch is – continuous, evolving, and impactful collaborations,' he adds. 'If you ask me, the most impactful project is always the latest. Each project and reflection is an exciting process to share with artists and designers.'

In pictures: the design evolution of Sketch

The Gallery at Sketch

The Gallery at Sketch is best known for its Millennium pink interiors by India Mahdavi and David Shrigley. But the once-candy-hued space started as a 'Big White Cube' conceived by Noé Duchaufour-Lawrance and Mazouz. On the walls, 12 screens displayed avant-garde shorts: during the day, the space served as an art gallery, free of furniture and free to access, while by night, it was turned into a dining space.

The Big White Cube was transformed by Mazouz in 2005, with the aim of instilling some warmth into the space. He commissioned artists to create decorative screens to partition the room, which once again acted as a space for art and design by day, restaurant and club by night. 

In 2012, on the occasion of its tenth anniversary, artist Martin Creed was entrusted with the décor of Sketch's Gallery. The makeover consisted of a bold graphic treatment and an eclectic mix of art, objects and furniture. 

Most legendary is India Mahdavi's pink rendition of the Gallery, in collaboration with artist David Shrigley. 'One designer who has significantly impacted sketch is India Mahdavi,' says Mazouz. 'She created an essence, a time in the Gallery that Sketch enjoyed worldwide media success from. Our visitors still ask today about our pink chairs.'

The final in a series of makeovers of the Gallery was unveiled in March 2022. Mahdavi revisited her design in collaboration with artist Yinka Shonibare, who created created 15 new site-specific textile works that offer a powerful celebration of African culture and its legacy. Meanwhile, Mahdavi chose a copper de Gournay wallpaper for the walls with custom-made banquette seating in shades of sunshine yellow.

Sketch Pod Loos and East Bar

Among the distinctive spaces at Sketch, its pod loos are perhaps the most legendary. They are accessed through the East Bar, for which Mazouz commissioned inflatable-furniture designer Hans-Walter Müller.  

The Sketch pod loos were conceived by Mazouz and Duchaufour-Lawrance as an innovative bathroom design, and have remained unchanged since 2002, becoming the most distinctive element of Sketch's interior design. 

The Glade

The Glade (once named 'The West Bar') was originally created as a black and white space by Mazouz and Duchaufour-Lawrance. A scarlet colour graduation was later integrated into the walls, inspired by artist Chris Levine’s Laserpods, which were installed on the walls.

The room was slowly transformed into an urban forest and renamed The Glade, its furniture swapped for warmer pieces. By 2010, an imposing, 6m-long tree-branch chandelier by French sculptor Vincent Dubourg was added to the ceiling over the centre of the room. 

In 2012, Carolyn Quartermaine and Didier Mahieu were invited to tranform The Glade into a charming woodland, defined by grass-like carpets and tree-themed wall-coverings. The Glade became Sketch's space for afternoon tea, lunch, dinner and evening cocktails, with a vegetable-based garden menu. 

The space's transformation was complete by 2017, when colour was added to the forest-like environment bringing a sense of enchantment to the space. 

The Parlour

The Parlour was originally designed by Mazouz in 2002, a street-facing space composed of two rooms defined by high ceilings and nods to neoclassical style. For the interior design, he was inspired by cult Parisian tea room Angelina, a literary salon for tea and patisserie. 

Jurgen Bey took the reins of the Parlour's interior design, transforming it from an all-white minimalist space into a French hunting lodge-inspired interior featuring re-upholstered flea-market chairs.

The Parlour was once again transformed by Mazouz in 2017: together with Andres Ros Soto, he created an exuberant space featuring a clash of print and a colourful neon light installation. 

Lecture Room and Library

This room was curated by Gabhan O’Keeffe, and has remained mostly untouched since 2002. 

Sketch, 9 Conduit St, London W1S 2XG

sketch.london

During Stockholm Design Week 2022, designer India Mahdavi staged a takeover of Svenskt Tenn’s Stockholm gallery space. Located on the ground floor of the Strandvägen 5 store, the exhibition is titled ‘Frankly Yours’ and sees the Parisian designer experimenting with the legacy of the brand, using iconic prints and objects, as well as new pewter pieces designed for the occasion. 

The starting point for the space is Frank’s ‘Vegetable Tree’ print, a multicoloured composition of fruits and flowers on white textile cladding the room’s walls in their entirety. ‘The “Vegetable Tree” print brings us back to the root of life: nature in its purest form,’ comments Mahdavi.

‘I love the fact that vegetables grow on a tree here: it gives this fabric a poetic dimension. In the exhibition, I have put the “Vegetable Tree” all over the walls and the furniture. This allows us to perceive it in a different way and to highlight its beauty.’

Upon entering the room, visitors are immersed in a world of colour: as well as adorning the walls, the bold hues of the Josef Frank prints grace furniture and lighting pieces. Mahdavi injected the interior with still more energising colour, from the velvety purple carpet to the expressive pillows on the sofas.

‘Colours are the consequence of my memory, of my heritage: my Iranian and Egyptian origins, growing up in the United States in the 1960s and living in the south of France,’ says Mahdavi. ‘It is a language that I have come to use fluently. As I see it, colours have conversations. They argue and reconcile.’

For the exhibition, she has also designed a floor lamp based on Josef Frank’s ‘2326’ model, and new pieces in pewter (a material that is at the heart of Svenskt Tenn’s legacy). 

The pewter trays, Mahdavi explains, are a tribute to Svenskt Tenn’s founder, Estrid Ericson. ‘At the age of 30, back in 1924, she was already such an example for women: a strong and independent entrepreneur,’ says Mahdavi. ‘The whole project honours the history, the origins and the work made by Svenskt Tenn, Estrid Ericson and Josef Frank.’

INFORMATION

‘Frankly Yours’ is at Svenkst Tenn, Strandvägen 5, Stockholm, until 23 October 2022. All pieces available from Svenskt Tenn

svenskttenn.com

india-mahdavi.com

It was, of all things, a magazine article that sparked the idea that led to designer India Mahdavi’s latest exhibition. In 2018, The New Yorker published a sprawling report on current research being done on ruins unearthed from Greek and Roman archaeological sites. The conclusion these archaeologists had reached after decades of investigation is that the milky white marble forms that have come to define antiquity are not what they seem. That at the time of their creation, they were lavishly painted – buildings were awash in vibrant decorative motifs while human forms came with brightly patterned clothing and had many shades of pigmented skin – but the colourant had disintegrated and eroded over time, leaving the stark white forms we now associate with Greek and Roman sculpture and architecture. Thousands of years ago the built environment was not really homogeneously white, they concluded, but in fact, drenched in colour.

‘Their clothes were a bit like Missoni, no?' Mahdavi jokes as she explains this concept on a muggy spring evening in the rough, stone-walled confines of Carwan’s Piraeus-area gallery, an industrial zone turned arts neighbourhood just a stone’s throw from Athens’ bustling docklands and ferry terminal. ‘This purity of whiteness is a false idea we have about Greek sculpture. Everything was coloured. They were all painted in very strong pigments,' she explains. This little known fact provided the conceptual underpinning of ‘Achromia', her latest show with Carwan (on view until 13 August 2022), a reimagining of some of her most iconic furniture pieces totally stripped of colour. ‘When Nicolas invited me,' she recounts, referring to Carwan founder Nicolas Bellavance-Lecompte, who commissioned the project, ‘he told me: “You're so well known for colour, what would we do if we took it away from you?”’

As followers of the prolific furniture and interior designer’s work know, colour is the guiding force in most of what she creates. Her concept for London-based restaurant Sketch, for instance, first doused the Mayfair dining room in bubblegum pink (making it the most Instagrammed place in all of London), and later in shades of saffron and gold for its 2022 redesign. Or her luscious wallpapers for De Gournay, which feature references to surrealist painter de Chirico’s mind-bending canvases and figurative scenes inspired by The Persian Book of Kings. ‘Colour, for me, is a way to create a vibration,' she says of her style. ‘It creates a sense of light.'

For the exhibition, Mahdavi rendered the pieces solely in white marble. Among them are the three-tiered ‘Bishop’ stool, which she regularly reinvents in new colourways and patterns, the two-piece asymmetric ‘Alber’ table, originally designed for late fashion designer Alber Elbaz, and two versions of the ‘Diagonale’ table, a long dining table and smaller circular version, which was originally produced in pigmented ceramic. In addition to the material makeover, she added diagonal fluting to the edges of each piece as a nod to traditional Greek columns. ‘I love the way they attract the light,' she explains, ‘it creates a vibration even without colour.'

The pieces were crafted in Pentelic marble quarried from the slopes of Mount Pentelikon just outside the city, the very same stone used to build the Parthenon. ‘I think it was really interesting also to do this project here in Athens because it's a material that belongs here,' she says. ‘The pieces are made locally – they work well here.' The actual fabrication was completed by local firm Delta Marble. However, in developing the project, Mahdavi and her team employed a 3D printer to build 1:1 scale models in her Paris studio. Though the forms were pulled from her own archive, the novel material required a total rehashing of proportion and scale. ‘Marble is very prescriptive,' she notes of the process. ‘It took a lot of experimentation to find the right form.'

But according to Mahdavi, developing this collection wasn’t as simple as bleaching the vibrancy out of these well-known designs. ‘It was very difficult,' she reveals. ‘It took ages for me to get used to the idea. You would think that this was a really easy show to create, but it was such a challenging exercise mentally for me to let go of my usual language.' And even though the absence of colour is the show’s central concept, for Mahdavi, colour is impossible to escape. ‘It’s funny, even though the entire exhibition is about achromia, removing colour,' she observes. ‘In the end, it’s the only thing we’re talking about.'

INFORMATION

‘Achromia’ by India Mahdavi is on view until 13 August 2022
india-mahdavi.com
carwangallery.com

ADDRESS

Polidefkous 39
Pireas 185 45
Greece

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Fresh from their collaboration at the 2021 Salone del Mobile – where India Mahdavi was among 17 creatives to reinterpret the Dior ‘Medallion’ chair – the designer and the fashion house have come together once again, to reimagine another iconic Dior object. 

This time, Mahdavi has applied her singular eye to Dior’s J'adore perfume amphora. First launched in 1999, the peculiar J’adore bottle design has always made it stand out among its counterparts on the perfume shelf. An almost-teardrop shape with a gold-ribbed neck, the original J’adore bottle recalls both the vases of Greek antiquity and the cinched-waist silhouettes of Dior’s revolutionary New Look (an ever-present inspiration, right down to Dior make-up). 

India Mahdavi J’adore bottle in the making

Mahdavi’s design maintains the basic structure of the J'adore bottle, but with a literal new twist. The run of 1,000 bottles has been crafted by master glassmakers in Murano, Venice, to have a hypnotic, twister-like composition. 

The final bottle design is an object of exquisite craftsmanship – handblown, hand polished, and finished off with a delicate application of gold paint. It expresses the most emblematic characteristics of Murano artisanship. 

The ‘temptress amphora’, as Dior calls it, is meant to reflect the sensual nature of J'adore perfume itself. The fragrance is a mixture of centifolia rose, sambac jasmine and ylang-ylang, accented by notes of creamy sandalwood and a burst of bright tuberose. 

It is ‘sensual without being too heavy’, says perfumer François Demachy. ‘It is a composition that brings opposites together, that makes iconic floral notes into an alluring, unique and mysterious ensemble. J’adore invents a flower that doesn't exist, an ideal.’ 

Adds Mahdavi, ‘When you hear “J’adore”, you think of the eponymous perfume. But let us not forget the phrase’s initial meaning: it is a cry from the heart – the cry of an emotion, when faced with something that appeals to all of our senses, seduces us, and carries us away.’

Her limited-edition bottle design is fittingly sensual.

INFORMATION

dior.com

Seventeen designers and artists have been invited to reinterpret Dior’s ‘Medallion’ chair for the French house’s most significant presence at Milan’s Salone del Mobile to date. A roster pulled together from China, Korea, Japan, Lebanon, South Africa, UK, Holland, Italy and France includes Sam Baron, Nacho Carbonell, Pierre Charpin, Dimore Studio, Martino Gamper, India Mahdavi, Nendo, Ma Yansong, Tokujin Yoshioka and Pierre Yovanovitch.

The Dior Maison collection, under the creative direction of Cordelia de Castellane focuses on tabletop and decorative items, yet in November 2020 it launched the ‘Bonne Aventure’ card table and chairs. At first it might seem out of character to find chairs at Dior, but back in 1947 when Christian Dior opened his couture house, he turned to Victor Grandpierre to decorate the salon.

That original design scheme included grey and white armchairs and the oval-backed ‘Medallion’ chair used to seat guests at his fashion shows, both in a 1940s vision of the neoclassical Louis XVI style that the couturier loved. The armchair was immortalised in the 1955 Diorama and the 1958 Miss Dior perfume campaigns by illustrator René Grau. It has subsequently has become almost as iconic to the house as the ‘Bar’ jacket or Cannage pattern.

Showing from 5 September 2021, in Palazzo Citterio in Milan’s Brera neighbourhood, 17 designers have put their personal spin on the oval-backed Dior ‘Medallion’ chair. Around 30 chairs are exhibited, some as pairs or sets.

Dior ‘Medallion’ chair: 17 new designs go on display at Salone del Mobile 2021

Pierre Charpin has reduced the Dior ‘Medallion’ chair to the absolute minimum, with just an outline (that said it’s a particularly bold outline) in black metal resin and finished with a mirrored seat, for the user to look ‘at oneself before being looked at’.

Sam Baron’s ‘Ensemble(s)’ is made up of four pared-back chairs assembled together in a deliberately haphazard way. 

Nendo’s ‘Chaise Medaillon 3.0’ is made of two sheets of tempered glass, with the back and legs formed from a curve held in place with a shelf-like seat and the signature oval back rendered as a void, in a very pleasing interpretation.

Seoul-based Seungjin Yang has applied his signature balloon technique to ‘upholster’ the seat and back of his otherwise pretty faithful render of the chair, made entirely in epoxy resin.

India Mahdavi proposes a chair design close to the original in Dior grey lacquered wood, bringing her passion for craft and sense of colour through hand-embroidery from Kashmir in Djerba wool; each chair in her set of five is slightly different, and the designer calls them ‘a united tribe despite their individuality’.

Beirut-based designer Khaled El Mays has deconstructed, reinterpreted and reinvented the original, by extending the back, incorporating a straw-backed mirror and adding leather fringed feet.

Pierre Yovanovitch’s his and hers pair, ‘Monsieur et Madame Dior’, are crafted in bronze and upholstered with embroidered canvas in Dior’s oblique logo pattern, first developed by Marc Bohan in 1967, made expressly by Vermont in its Paris ateliers.

INFORMATION

Dior ‘Medallion’ chair, on show at Palazzo Citterio, from 5 September 2021. Opening hours: Saturday to Thursday, 10am – 7pm; Friday, 10am – 4pm

dior.com

ADDRESS

Palazzo Citterio
Via Brera 12
Milan, Italy

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Holiday mode has officially turned on in the port city of Toulon. Centre Pompidou has invaded with a handful of its design collections, opening an exhibition curated by Marie-Ange Brayer during Design Parade that explores the art of summertime lounging.

Wrapped up in a nostalgic, candy-striped backdrop realised by Parisian designer India Mahdavi, the chairs unfold like sweets inside. Based in the art deco former navy base Cercle Naval, the showcase is a scientific examining of how we used lived closer to the floor with our seating, and how our posture changes when we relax in the summer.

Upon entering the space, the lord of reclined seating, the chaise longue, is presented as a protagonist. Harking from the age of modernism, these mark the start of when holidaying became a pastime and visionaries like Eileen Gray and Robert Mallet-Stevens (architect of neighbouring Villa Noailles) envisioned furniture for their villas. Gray’s Fauteuil Transat can move from armchair to deckchair, while a 1995 polyester and aluminium lightweight chaise by Maarten Van Severen shows the style’s contemporary evolution.

Upstairs, the more experimental, playful and undulating forms take the floor for the second part of the show – ‘Les Pop’. The curves in Mahdavi’s backdrop intensify these radical pieces, projecting the essence of the Pop Art era they thrived in. Futuristic forms like a Verner Panton 1958 polyurethane chair and Gaetano Pesce’s party poufs scour the area. As a member of the Centre Pompidou board and president of Design Parade, Pascale Mussard is spearheading the institute’s three-year long residency in the locale ‘Toulon is going to have the design heart,’ she muses of the Riviera’s burgeoning creative scene.

But it’s not just chairs in the show, the seaside landscape is completed with a 1983 yellow and grey stripe beach hut by architect Aldo Rossi for Molteni, plus the ultimate relaxation companion – the hammock; more specifically, a Kvadrat fabric version by Jean-Baptiste Fastrez from 2012. Parked up on a sloping stage, appearing to almost topple over, is a draft of inflatable furniture, offering even more retro beach allure. Mussard describes all of the designs as ‘shapes that are iconic of the time, but still so strong and powerful’.

Centre Pompidou’s pop-up is a pivotal moment for the Provence city, as it celebrated its fourth sojourn of Design Parade Toulon with Villa Noailles during a scorching weekend of poolside bathing, rosé and petanque. Next year will see its new show open in nearby Hotel des Arts, perhaps again disecting another element of Côte d'Azur charm.

INFORMATION

Nouvelles Vagues, 28 June - 24 November; Cercle Naval, Toulon; centrepompidou.fr

Nespresso has launched a limited edition Varieties range that subtly celebrates all that's right with the festive period, enlisting the help of architect-designer and master of colour India Mahdavi to turn its low-energy capsules high-caffeine.

Inspired by the sweet flavours of this year's Varieties selection – macaron, madeleine and praline – Mahdavi signed the packaging with her signature colour pop (that wouldn't look out of place in her ethereal Tokyo coffee shop, completed earlier this year). To wit, the Iranian designer has also reimagined Nespresso's mugs, cups, window displays and visual communications.

The jewel-like pods, which Mahdavi feels are ‘reminiscent of childhood’, recall old-fashioned sweets. Imagine them piled high in glass jars on kitchen counter-tops like a glut of humbugs.

‘I wanted to add a hint of reverie,’ she says of their memory-lane aesthetic. ‘The challenge was to try to add a dreamy dimension to a world leading brand like Nespresso,’ she continues. ‘There was space to bring roundness, sweetness and gourmandise to their world. These are not just flavours but imaginary delights; I’m infusing a touch of emotion and tenderness to the functional and urban universe of coffee.’

Likewise, Mahdavi's new Origin Collection of coffee cups and serving tray elevates the coffee ritual with a commitment to texture; and of course, a splash of colour. The interior of the mugs are a perfect, flat white-brown. Inspired by the shape of the coffee bean, each matte-finished ceramic shell is rounded to fit into the palms, creating a satisfying sense of connection between cup, coffee, and coffee-lover.

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Nespresso website and India Mahdavi’s website

Housed at the elegant, privately owned 1930s Villa Mozart in Milan’s historic centre is the third edition of Doppia Firma – a dialogue between design and artisanal excellence – the exhibition which partners 13 international designers with Italian master artisans to create an original piece.

On show across the ground floor halls of the villa, owned by the jeweller Giampiero Bodino who uses the building as his studio and rarely opens his doors to the public, the contemporary works spanning disciplines such as glassblowing, gilding, silversmithing, silkscreen printing, spinning, lacemaking, typesetting and ceramics show skilled excellence at its best.

The project’s aim, which was founded by the Geneva-based private organisation Michelangelo Foundation for Creativity and Craftsmanship (which promotes and preserves master craftsmanship) and the Cologni Foundation for the Metiers d’art, a Milanese, non-profit organisation, which assists cultural and educational initiatives, is also to forge new and unexpected relationships between contemporary thinkers and those who employ the finest traditional craft skills. Each design is displayed with a series of images and films, examining the creative process.

Highlights at this year’s event seen at the ivy-covered villa include a new cotton lace by the much-in-demand French architect and designer India Madhavi and master lacemaker Lucia Costantini, while the London-based multi-disciplinary practice Studio Swine has teamed with master goldsmith Giampaolo Babetto from Arqua Petrarco to create a series of brushed silver objets. Dutch industrial designer Kiki van Eijk has made a family of marble pieces overlaid with gold leaf in collaboration with Marino Menegazzo, the Venetian master gilder. The American-born, Swiss-based Ini Archibong who is also showing his first collection of furniture for British design brand Sé, has worked with Elisabetta Bocchese to present a knitted textile.

Each piece will be marked with the signatures of both creators – Doppia Firma translates as Double Signature – to represent the conversation and collaboration.

INFORMATION

‘Doppia Firma’ is on view from 17-22 April at Salone del Mobile. For more information, visit the Doppia Firma website

ADDRESS

Villa Mozart
Maison Giampiero Bodino
Via Mozart 9
Milan

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India Mahdavi – the design-eye behind Ladurée in Geneva (2016) and Los Angeles (2017), as well as the Gallery restaurant at London’s Sketch (2014) – has again lent her elegantly eccentric vision to Ladurée’s new salon de thé in Tokyo.

The Paris-based macaron and pastry specialist has become a world leader in Versailles-inspired whimsy, no small thanks to Mahdavi, who’s on a sugar high this year. Her candy-hued Salone del Mobile 2018 offerings for Bisazza promise to be as pop-tastic as ever.

Known as the ‘queen of colour’, Mahdavi uses a palette of celadon-greens and bonbon pinks. With typical brilliance, she elevates what could be a kawaii-cute tone with sophisticated, tongue-in-cheek flourishes. Twisting candy-stick tables sprout from a graphic, grey and white marble floor; blown glass floret lamps bloom from the cherry blossom-pink walls, and meringue-shaped ceiling lamps soften the down lighting.

‘Ladurée is a garden of delights,’ she says. ‘I am here to bring joy, and Ladurée’s essence is closely connected to enjoyment. I wanted to bring some French-ness to Tokyo and make this place a full experience.’

Full experience is right. Visitors are encased by walls of Marie Antoinette-inspired white garden latticework, and they lounge upon bespoke, scalloped furniture, plumped with plush velvet cushions fit for a Parisian banquette.

The fare? Think typical French delicacies with contemporary twists. Strawberry and coconut délice, pistachio saint honoré, and fluffy macarons in every conceivable flavour, washed down the rabbit-hole with a china thimble-full of aromatic tea.

The space – like stepping inside a mille feuille – is set-like, an Instagram dreamworld, a fully-realised mise en scène. On International Women’s Day 2018, Mahdavi told us it was her ultimate goal to make a movie. When she does, we hope there’s a love scene in this cinematic salon de thé.

INFORMATION

For more information visit the Ladurée website

To celebrate International Women’s day, we turned to some prolific female designers to give us quotes on their successes, a glimpse at their historical heroines, and news on projects at Salone del Mobile (17-22 April). We hear from daring dames in design Inga Sempé, Bethan Laura Wood, Sabine Marcelis, Nika Zupanc, Es Devlin, Lara Bohinc, Cristina Celestino and India Mahdavi...

Sabine Marcelis

Rotterdam-based designer Sabine Marcelis opened her studio upon graduating from Design Academy Eindhoven in 2011. Her work is characterised by a distinguished use of colour and materials, and an innovative approach to lighting. Recent collaborations include OMA-designed Repossi boutique on Place Vendôme in Paris and candleholders for menswear brand Salle Privée.

Wallpaper*: What is your career highlight so far and why?
Sabine Marcelis: Having the opportunity to collaborate with OMA (Rem Koolhaas), which has taken my work to a completely different scale.

W*:Which women, or a woman inspired you to follow a creative path?
SM: Ellie Uyttenbroek from Exactitudes, she’s a bad-ass who plays by no-ones rules and has the ability to see potential in the most unexpected things.

W*: What’s on the drawing board right now?
SM: Some architectural projects and a site-specific installation. And of course preparing to show new work at Salone del Mobile in April.

W*: Dream project?
SM: To work on something monumental. A permanent public installation would be amazing. I would also absolutely love to work on more performative situation; to collaborate with musicians and theatre.

Nika Zupanc

Slovenian product and interior designer Zupanc’s work is witty, visually delightful and pristine. Her commissions include Moooi and Moroso, and her ongoing collaboration with Sè. She also has her own brand of precious and whimsical furniture.

Wallpaper*: What is your career highlight so far?
Nika Zupanc: It is almost impossible, if not unjust, to name one project as the most dear to me, but if I have to choose one today, I would pick the Ribbon chair, which is now officially my first injection-moulded piece of furniture. But it is not that making it so special to me, it is more the simple fact, that since the beginning it was envisioned as a statement against rationalism that is still ruling the world of product design. Using a bow as the central symbol of a contemporary chair design seemed as rather daring gesture to do in a society, that is still ruled by overrated rationalism and technicism. With a bit of humour, one could even call it a ‘revenge design’.

W*: Which women, or a woman inspired you to follow a creative path?
NZ: Since we are evidently living in a world where woman still have to fight for their equal place in society, my work was always full of references to historical heroines that fail openly and laud. Daring desires of Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath, Camille Claudel and others inspired me since my very early age, however the role model I would pick here is Coco Chanel who proved that there is always a way. I wouldn't say she didn’t pay her share, but social rules for women clothing was changed ever since and for sure she knew, how to own her desires.

W*: What’s on the drawing board right now?
NZ: Among all new products and collections, that will be revealed during up coming Salone del Mobile in April in Milan, you can also find glasses, a luxury residence and a collection of surfing boards.

W*:Dream project?
NZ: Designing a car.

Cristina Celestino

Celestino made her big ticket debut in 2016 with her furniture collaboration with Fendi for Design Miami. The Italian designer trained in architecture before shifting to interior architecture where she refined her style producing collections for brands including Tonelli Design and Nilufar.

Wallpaper*: What are your career highlights?
Cristina Celestino: My wall covering and flooring projects for Botteganove and Fornace Brioni had great success. I had the opportunity to work as creative director on design projects that concern surfaces, which I deeply love. Also The Happy Room project for Fendi in 2016. It was great to show a whole concept through an extensive furniture collection. And finally, my collaboration with Nilufar gallery. I will show a new piece there during Salone del Mobile 2018 and I truly admire Nina Yashar, both as a woman and as an entrepreneur.

W*: Which woman, or women inspired you to follow a creative path?
Cristina Celestino: The first woman that stands out as an inspiring guide is my art and architecture teacher at high school. She made my creativity bloom. I also have a passion for the revolutionary work of Nanda Vigo.

W*: What’s on the drawing board right now?
CC: The upcoming Salone del Mobile project, there are many others too, for example Corallo for which I have reinterpreted the historic streetcars of the city imagining an ideal Cinema Corallo that will circulate in the Brera district. Corallo will create a suggestive screening room on rails.

W*: Dream project?
CC: To build a big house for my family in the country and design everything from the architecture to the towels.

Inga Sempé

A graduate of industrial design school ENSCI, Sempé is known for her versatility and lightness of touch. Since opening her studio in 2000, the French designer has established long-term relationships with firms such as Ligne Roset and Wästberg.

Wallpaper*: What is your career highlight?
Inga Sempe: No special highlights, just very slow work.

W*: Which woman, or women inspired you to follow a creative path?
IS: I was inspired by all the working women from my childhood, always taking care of all the cleaning and boring stuff at home and looking after the children, while the men were just sitting and drinking. I thought: I will never be this way, and will never be with men like that. A bigger help was my father who always said, ‘women have no imagination’. So I just showed him he was wrong. A real inspiring woman for me is Grisélidis Réal, the Swiss writer and prostitute who fought for the rights of prostitutes.

W*: What is on the drawing board right now?
IS: I’ve just finished a herringbone double grill for Crane Cookware and a fabric for Alcantara. Coming up are mirrors for Magis, seating for Mattiazzi and handles for DND.

W*: Dream project?
IS: a cast-iron wooden stove.

India Mahdavi

The Irano-Egyptian designer has graced many spaces with her whimsically elegant aesthetic. Dubbed the ‘queen of colour’ by many, the Paris-based designer is accountable for the Gallery restaurant at Sketch, to stand-out pieces for the likes of Cogolin and Louis Vuitton’s Objets Nomades.

Wallpaper*: What is your career highlight?
India Mahdavi: Being able to embrace womanhood, motherhood and my career as an architect and designer at the same time – and still very much enjoying all three.

W*: Which woman, or women inspired you to follow a creative path?
IM: All the inspiring pioneers like Louise Bourgeois, Lou Andreas-Salomé, Andrée Putman, Maja Hoffmann… they are all free women.

W*: What’s on the drawing board right now?
IM: So many different things – a few collaborations for Salone del Mobile in Milan in April  – a bathroom for Bisazza, a furniture installation at Nilufar Gallery, a collection of rugs for Golran, a new retail concept for Tod’s London Sloane Street flagship store, a salon de thé for Ladurée in Tokyo (after Geneva and Los Angeles) some residential projects and scenography for an exhibition about craftsmanship for the Michelangelo Foundation in Venice.

W*: What is your dream project?
IM: To make a movie.

Bethan Laura Wood

The RCA graduate is the flamboyant mistress of pattern and marquetry. The British designer has had decorative collaborations with Valextra to Bitossi, and in 2016 she was awarded with the Swarovski Emerging Talent Award at London Design Festival.

Wallpaper*: What is your career highlight?
Bethan Laura Wood: I have to pick more than one… getting into the RCA to study my MA in Design Products, winning the 2016 Swarovski Emerging Talent medal at London Design Festival, attending the RCA graduate gala in 2011, and winning the W Hotels Designers of the Future 2013 award at Design Miami Basel.

W*: What’s on the drawing board right now?
BLW: For SS 2018, I have worked with Valextra designing handles to go with their bags, really enjoyed the experience working with their specialists, it was interesting applying my knowledge from design to create these miniature things with a specialist. Am also working with Valextra on their Venice boutique, some smaller bespoke elements rather than the entire interior. Also some rugs for CC Tapis.

W*: Which women have inspired you?
BLW: Frida Kahlo, travelling to Mexico I had more access to her and I admire her style. Yayoi Kusama, I love her absorption into herself and her patterns. Nathalie du Pasquier of Memphis and also Charlotte Perriand because their designs stand along and are timeless. Style wise am also a big fan of Bjork, another person who has found ways of expressing herself through her clothing.

W*: Dream project?
BLW: I would love to design a London Underground station, all the patterns for the walls.

Lara Bohinc

Slovenian-born, London-based designer and RCA-graduate Lara Bohinc started out in fashion and jewellery design – winning the British Fashion Council’s New Generation Award – but segued seamlessly into furniture design when she created the Solaris Kinetic Table with Lapicida for Wallpaper* Handmade 2014. Since then she has collaborated with Skultuna and worked with Italian manufacturers to create lighting and vases. Defiantly multidisciplinary, her love of natural materials and pure geometric forms is what unites her diverse body of work.

Wallpaper*: What is your career highlight?

Lara Bohinc: I guess getting an MBE would be a standard answer but I feel that my career highlight hasn’t arrived yet.

W*: Which woman, or women inspired you to follow a creative path?
LB: My mother. She was a working woman, she was a judge until her retirement and she instilled in me a positive attitude and a good work ethic. She also made me believe that anything was possible if you worked hard, whether you were a woman or a man. She was always very encouraging and seemed to love everything that I created, from my first doodles to the objects of today. I have her to thank for who I am today, as a woman and as a creative.

W*: What's on the drawing board right now?
LB: A new metal furniture collection that will be launched at Salone. Also my new website.

W*: Dream project?
LB: Every project can become a dream project, however this depends on many factors… people, budget, timeline.

Es Devlin

Recipient of the Panerai London Design Medal 2017 and probably the world’s most sought-after set designer, Es Devlin OBE has an enviable portfolio that ranges from London’s 2012 Olympic closing ceremony, for which she filled the stadium with Damien Hirst’s 5,600 sq m Union Jack spin painting, to creative work for the likes of Miley Cyrus, Beyoncé, U2, Adele, Jay Z and Kanye West. Most comfortable when operating ‘on the edge of the impossible’, she says she practises the ‘suspension of disbelief’.

Wallpaper*: What is your career highlight?
Es Devlin: My lakeside stage set for the Bregenz Festival’s production of Carmen.

W*: Which woman, or women inspired you to follow a creative path?
ED: Ray Eames, Adrienne Rich and Margaret Atwood.

W*: What's on the drawing board right now?
ED: MASK: a new sculptural filmic work at Somerset house which will launch during Photo London from May 18.

W*: Dream project?
ED: I’d love to create a work in the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern.

If residential alchemy were a thing – say, transforming a most banal abode into something altogether remarkable, with bonus points awarded for facades that resemble precious metals – a winning example comes in the shape of a silver house, tucked into the verdant hills of Provence, gently glowing.

At first glance, it’s hard to know whether to think it bombastic, brilliant or just plain weird. There is nothing graceful about the awkward, boxy proportions of the structure itself, a faux-Provençal new-build with a fortress-like feel, but its redemption comes through its hue. Depending on the weather or the time of day, it transitions from sterling to dark grey to dusty blue to olive-tree green. A chameleon house, if you will: a bit funny-looking, but not without charm.

Formally named the Silver House on completion of the renovation this summer, the property is the final touch to Domaine du Muy, a sprawling outdoor sculpture park set across ten hectares of untamed inland terrain near the Massif de l’Esterel mountain range, some 45 minutes north of St-Tropez. ‘We were all slightly terrified that the reflections from the paint might burn us to a crisp when we were out on the terrace,’ says Edward Mitterrand, a Geneva-based art adviser and the artistic director of Domaine du Muy, who asked Paris-based designer and architect India Mahdavi to transform the house. ‘But it turned out more than fine. From a building that was really not elegant or breathtaking or interesting architecturally, India created a different kind of place. Before, it was nothing, whereas now it is something.’

Indeed, what began as a semi-finished and orange-coloured leftover when Edward and his father – the gallerist Jean-Gabriel Mitterrand – took over the property in 2014 is now an attraction in its own right; an intriguing, metallic complement to the 42 artworks that lurk in the park beyond.

‘I’m the first to acknowledge that this will never be great architecture,’ says Mahdavi. She was tasked with making the most of the house – it couldn’t be demolished for ‘boring, administrative reasons’ – while creating a family holiday home-meets-flexible gallery space for the Mitterrands. ‘As we were sort of stuck with it, we had to make a strong statement and that really ended up being: let’s erase the house altogether, by painting it silver so it reflects the sky and the landscape,’ says the designer. No stranger to working in this region of France, she has outfitted the Monte-Carlo Beach hotel in Monaco, Maja Hoffman’s Hôtel du Cloître in Arles, and several private homes in Cap Ferret.

The striking paint job took its cue from a sculpture visible from the home’s expansive terrace. Past two small, artificial lakes (currently host to Yayoi Kusama’s Narcissus Garden, 1966-2011, which comprises 1,600 mirrored steel balls bobbing on the surface), the not-so-subtle glint of a 7m stack of oversized stainless steel buckets (A Giant Leap of Faith, 2006) by Subodh Gupta caught Mahdavi’s eye.

Of course, the silver plating is just part of the story – the interiors reveal a more understated side to the house’s reinvention. The upstairs, which has three of the four bedrooms, is rather light-touch on the design front, Mahdavi notes, while the ground floor got the full treatment. There, geometric black and white tiles – designed by Mahdavi for Bisazza – create a bold, graphic symmetry underfoot, while arched cut-out doorways separate the foyer, the dining area and the main living space, adding a bit of the softness of the south of France.

A mix of the Mitterrands’ own furniture and several of Mahdavi’s designs – her signature ‘Jelly Pea’ sofas and a bespoke glass and rattan dining table called ‘Sunshine’ among them – perfectly capture the kind of stylish haphazardness that seems to permeate the region. A souped-up Ikea kitchen sits to the side of the main entrance, while vaulted, steel-framed double doors open onto the terrace. Mahdavi expanded and elongated this outdoor area to widen the silhouette of the house, supplementing its square footage with plenty of external living space.

‘At first, the house was sort of a vertical horror story on a hill, so we had to find a way to rewrite it into the landscape and take it off its pedestal,’ says Mahdavi. Removing the earth in front of the building and erasing the hill also made room for a spacious gallery, which now sits below the house and opens gracefully onto a sloping lawn. Notably, there is no internal staircase linking the gallery and the living spaces – a conscious choice to separate the public from the private.

‘It was about giving the house horizontal roots, if you will, and making it look as if it had been sitting there for a long time,’ says Mahdavi. It’s a stretch to say the house appears organic in the landscape, but there are romantic details – the enamelled-tile curves of the moucharaby lining the balcony, the undulating terracotta roof – that make it feel very right in Provence.

The building’s presence is also tempered, or contextualized, by the handiwork of lauded landscape architect Louis Benech. Perhaps best known for his restoration of the Jardin des Tuileries in Paris and his work on the Water Theatre grove at Versailles, his clients range from interior designer Jacques Grange to fashion house Hermès.

At Domaine du Muy, Benech has allowed indigenous lupins, heather, lavender, cork oaks and strawberry trees to make their way close to the house, echoing the wilder versions that can be found in the park beyond. To one side of the building, he has created a formal lawn area where mulberries, leadwort, orange and olive trees form a more manicured scenario. A border of cypresses and plane trees will grow tall with time, providing privacy from the driveway and concealing the neighbouring homes.

Benech refers to du Muy as a ‘non-project’ that was more about reparations and erasing the obvious human interventions of the past. ‘There are gardens where I am inventing a story and this was not one of them,’ he says. ‘The concept here was just to be modest or non-present, in a story which is about the art. I hope that in about two or three years no one will think that a human being went through this place. It’s about speeding up nature, and what would happen in ten years, we help it along a little quicker.’

Together, the house and the gardens offer a refined, colourful and comfortable place that can easily serve as both a hideaway and a showcase – a double intention that extends beyond the home and its immediate grounds to Domaine du Muy as a whole. ‘The ambition here is two-fold. There is the personal intention to have a place where we are happy to stay as a family, with friends, artists and clients dropping by,’ says Edward. ‘And there is the professional one: to show great art and create a vitrine that showcases our expertise when it comes to monumental sculpture – from transport and installation to curation and exhibition – which, to date, I think we have undersold.’

That expertise originates with Jean-Gabriel, the founder of Domaine du Muy and the well-regarded Galerie Mitterrand in Paris, which specialises in post-war sculpture. Since opening in the Marais in 1988 (it was then known as JGM to downplay the family name, as Jean-Gabriel’s late uncle, François Mitterrand, was president of France between 1981 and 1995) the gallery has staged countless shows of monumental works around the globe, from Rio to Taipei.

Domaine du Muy brings the Mitterrands’ know-how closer to home, and situates them on the collector-heavy Côte d’Azur art circuit. Father and son have spent the past two years pouring all their energy into this expansive outdoor affair, where artworks by late greats (Sol LeWitt), contemporary superstars (Carsten Höller, Dan Graham, Carlos Cruz-Diez) and young guns (Claudia Comte, Dan Colen) intermingle, amid unruly undergrowth and towering pines.

‘Sophisticated works, architecture and wild nature together – in conversation and in opposition. That is the simple purpose of this place,’ says Jean-Gabriel, who dreamed of creating a park of his own since he visited the Gori Collection at the Villa Celle in Tuscany when it opened in the early 1980s, showcasing a pioneering selection of site-specific works. ‘Le Muy is a wild place, but we have come here with an intellectual idea, and it may not appeal to everyone, but the intention has never been to please the most amount of people.’

Indeed, it is difficult to imagine buses dumping tourists from far-flung nations out front and, for the moment, Domaine du Muy remains more private than public. The park accepts a limited number of visitors by appointment on Thursday mornings during the season, which runs from July to October.

Come winter, the Mitterrands hope to start a residency programme, inviting an artist to stay in the grounds and create an in-situ work for the season ahead. To live in the Silver House, to bask in the garden’s winter sun, to meander among spectacular sculptures old and new: not a bad gig.

As originally featured in the November 2016 issue of Wallpaper* (W*212)

INFORMATION

Domaine du Muy is open by appointment only. For more information, visit the website

ADDRESS

Domaine du Muy
Le Muy
Var

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The latest iteration of India Mahdavi’s whimsically elegant aesthetic comes in the form of an inspiring rug collection for the traditional French manufacturer Cogolin. Entitled ‘Jardin Intéreiur’, the collection focuses on Mahdavi’s riffs on kilims and expertly casts the Orientalist weaving pattern in a whole new light.

Mahdavi’s contemporary twist on the kilim challenged Cogolin’s traditional ways of working. Formed in 1928, La Manufacture Cogolin has always counted on expert artisans and high levels of technical excellence to create its exquisite wares. The brand’s kilim rugs are typically comprised of a single repeat pattern, but for this collection, Mahdavi created six different patterns that can be assembled into a single composition. The varying pile heights, visible backgrounds and unexpected colour combinations also brought a striking modernity to this conventionally bohemian archetype.

Each design in ‘Jardin Intéreieur’ boasts a bold quality that simultaneously exudes Mahdavi’s signature for mixing sumptuous textures and graphic patterns. The designs range from simple rows of picket shapes, to a more playful mix of chevrons and interlacing diamonds that also cleverly engage with the negative space. Together with shades such as mustard, purple, chocolate, green and red, the rugs create an eye-catching surface that yields a range of effects in various piles.

‘I’ve used rugs by La Manufacture Cogolin in several projects because of their unique weave. These rugs have real personality,’ says the Paris-based Mahdavi. ‘The collaboration with Cogolin on a collection was a perfectly natural evolution of our relationship.’

INFORMATION

’Jardin Intérieur’ is available from Edward Fields in New York. For more details, visit La Manufacture Cogolin’s website

At Wallpaper*, we live and breathe interiors, bringing you coverage of the world’s most beautiful spaces – from residential to commercial and everything in between. Over the years, we’ve built a black book of interior designers who feel most kindred to the Wallpaper* world: the most boundary-pushing talents shaping the landscape today.

There’s the cross-cultural refinement of André Fu and the theatrical, set-design sensibilities of David Rockwell. Ilse Crawford and Vincent Van Duysen champion a more tactile humanism, while Martin Brudnizki and Tatjana von Stein embrace opulent, art-filled maximalism. If bold colour is your thing, look to India Mahdavi, while Harry Nuriev blurs the boundaries between furniture, sculpture and object.

There is no single formula here. The list spans everything from pared-back minimalism to bold, era-spanning interiors, united by something less easily defined: a distinctive point of view.

Wallpaper’s favourite interior designers working today

André Fu

André Fu has built his reputation on a reciprocal dialogue between Eastern and Western design traditions, working across hospitality, residential, retail and cultural projects from his Hong Kong studio. The city’s Upper House and The St. Regis Hong Kong established Fu as a major player; since then, his portfolio has expanded to include The Fullerton Bay Hotel Singapore, Villa La Coste in Provence and The Berkeley in London.

Key projects: The Upper House (Hong Kong, 2009), The Fullerton Bay Hotel (Singapore, 2010), Waldorf Astoria Bangkok (Bangkok, 2018), The St. Regis Hong Kong (Hong Kong, 2019)

David Rockwell

For David Rockwell, every interior is a stage. His background in theatre design remains a major influence on the work of Rockwell Group, the practice he founded in 1984. Rockwell's spectacular sensibility runs through the Nobu restaurants and hotels, the W Hotels chain and The New York Edition, to name a few. Today, his 350-person practice works from New York, Los Angeles and Madrid.

Key projects: W New York – Union Square (New York, 2000), Nobu Fifty Seven (New York, 2005), Nobu Hotel Caesars Palace (Las Vegas, 2013), The New York Edition (New York, 2015)

Dimore Studio

Since 2003, Britt Moran and Emiliano Salci have been creating interiors that feel like film sets under the banner of Dimorestudio. In the spaces the studio creates, mid-century icons rub shoulders with vintage finds and custom pieces, while saturated colour and rich texture lend the work a certain emotion. The result – felt across homes, hotels and boutiques worldwide – is both nostalgic and cinematic.

Key projects: La Dolce Vita Orient Express (2025), Hotel Saint-Marc (Paris, 2014), Grand Hotel et de Milan redesign (Milan, 2014-2023)

Dorothée Meilichzon

Since founding her Paris studio, CHZON, in 2009, Dorothée Meilichzon has mined the history of each site she works on for cues, layering vintage furniture, custom textiles and bespoke lighting. Grand Pigalle Hotel and Hôtel des Grands Boulevards in the French capital and Henrietta Hotel in London number among the results.

Key projects: The Hoxton Paris (Paris, 2017), Henrietta Hotel (London, 2017), Hôtel des Grands Boulevards (Paris, 2018)

Francis Sultana

Francis Sultana's interiors are pure art, and often exist in conversation with it. From his London studio, he combines architecture and bespoke furniture with a collector's eye, working in materials such as bronze, crystal and straw marquetry and drawing heavily on 20th-century design, particularly art deco. His projects include Spencer House and National Trust commissions, as well as Hotel La Palma in Capri.

Key projects: The Hunting Lodge (Hampshire, 2021), Hotel La Palma (Capri, 2023)

Gwenael Nicolas

Two decades in Japan shaped Gwenael Nicolas’s design language, bridging Japanese spatial discipline with his native French flair. Since co-founding Curiosity in Tokyo in 1998, he has become one of the defining designers in luxury retail, deploying his signature use of geometry, light and tight material palettes for the likes of Dior, Fendi, Bulgari, Shiseido, Louis Vuitton and Issey Miyake.

Key projects: Louis Vuitton Ginza Namiki Dori (Tokyo, 2012), Dolce & Gabbana Aoyama (Tokyo, 2016), Ginza Six (Tokyo, 2017), Dolce & Gabbana Old Bond Street (London, 2017), Graff Flagship Store Tokyo (Tokyo, 2021)

Harry Nuriev

Harry Nuriev's practice, Crosby Studios, founded between Paris and New York in 2014, rests on his concept of ‘transformism’ – repositioning and repurposing everyday objects and industrial materials. Balenciaga, Nike, Gucci and Dover Street Market have all commissioned his work, and Maison&Objet named him Designer of the Year 2026.

Key projects: Crosby Studios Store/Moscow flagship (Moscow, 2021), Casetify flagship (Seoul, 2024), Noisy Oyster (London, 2025), Clive Christian flagship (London, 2026)

Ilse Crawford

After a publishing career that included founding the UK edition of Elle Decoration, Ilse Crawford established Studioilse in 2001, creating homes, hotels, restaurants and offices that consider how people actually occupy them, rather than just visual effect. Ett Hem in Stockholm and Soho House New York remain touchstones of that approach. Crawford also founded and led the 'Man and Wellbeing' department at Design Academy Eindhoven for two decades, helping define a more humanistic contemporary design.

Key projects: Soho House New York (New York, 2003), Cecconi’s (London, 2005), Ett Hem (Stockholm, 2012)

India Mahdavi

Colour is everything for India Mahdavi. From her Paris studio, founded in 2000, she has applied it liberally across architecture, interiors, furniture and scenography. The Pink Room at Sketch in London became an instant design landmark; the city’s Connaught Bar and Monégasque hotel Monte-Carlo Beach followed. More than two decades on, Rue Las Cases in Paris has evolved into a little Mahdavi universe, bringing together her studio, showroom and shop.

Key projects: Hôtel Thoumieux (Paris, 2010), The Gallery at Sketch (London, 2014), Connaught Bar (London, 2020)

Kelly Behun

After training under Andrée Putman and Philippe Starck at Ian Schrager Hotels' in-house studio – including work on the Delano Miami and Mondrian Los Angeles – Kelly Behun established her own New York practice. Bespoke furnishings, unexpected vintage pieces and environments that often feel closer to art installations than interiors have made her one of the leaders in the field.

Key projects: 432 Park Avenue (New York, 2015), 100 East 53rd Street (New York, 2015), One Wall Street (New York, 2020)

Kelly Wearstler

Through her Los Angeles practice, Kelly Wearstler has defined a distinctly Californian strain of maximalism: saturated colour, graphic pattern and vintage furniture brought together with contemporary art. The Avalon Hotel Beverly Hills established her standing in the design world, a reputation since carried into the Proper Hotels in San Francisco, Santa Monica, Austin and Downtown Los Angeles, as well as private residences, restaurants, furniture and textiles.

Key projects: BG Restaurant at Bergdorf Goodman (New York, 2012), San Francisco Proper (San Francisco, 2017), Santa Monica Proper (Santa Monica, 2019)

Marta de la Rica

At Marta de la Rica's Madrid studio, antiques and contemporary craftsmanship sit alongside European classicism, softened by the patina of lived-in objects. Founded in 2014, her practice has imbued this sensibility across projects such as Club de Mar Mallorca, where 1970s Mediterranean glamour meets vintage Riva references, and Cristine Bedfor hotel in Málaga.

Key projects: Cristine Bedfor (Málaga, 2025), Club de Mar (Mallorca, 2025)

Martin Brudnizki

Martin Brudnizki’s London studio, founded in 2000, has become one of the defining forces in maximalist hospitality. Its portfolio speaks for itself: Annabel’s, The Ivy and Sexy Fish each reveal a different facet of the same instinct for theatrical, layered interiors. Today, the practice comprises more than 100 designers, architects and art consultants.

Key projects: The Ivy (London, 2015), Sexy Fish (London, 2015), The Beekman (New York, 2016), Annabel’s (London, 2018)

Pamela Shamshiri

With her Iranian heritage woven throughout, Pamela Shamshiri designs spaces that feel lived in. Since founding Studio Shamshiri in 2016, she has brought a set designer's instinct for narrative to homes, hotels and boutiques – restoring architectural landmarks by the likes of A. Quincy Jones and Rudolph Schindler, and dressing New Orleans' Maison de la Luz.

Key projects: Rudolph Schindler Lechner House renovation (Los Angeles, 2016), Maison de la Luz (New Orleans, 2019), A. Quincy Jones Smalley House renovation (Los Angeles, 2022), Irene Neuwirth Madison Avenue (New York, 2023)

Patricia Urquiola

Patricia Urquiola was mentored by Achille Castiglioni before going on to establish Studio Urquiola with her partner Alberto Zontone in 2001, building a practice that moves between architecture, product design and art direction. Since 2015 she has also served as creative director of Cassina, while designing extensively for B&B Italia, Moroso and Kartell.

Key projects: Mandarin Oriental Barcelona (Barcelona, 2009), Das Stue (Berlin, 2012), Il Sereno (Lake Como, 2016), Room Mate Giulia (Milan, 2016)

Roman and Williams

Stephen Alesch and Robin Standefer met in film production design, and that cinematic instinct shines through in their New York practice, Roman and Williams, founded in 2002. From the Ace Hotel New York and The Standard High Line to the British Galleries at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the studio builds interiors around the tension between old and new, polished and rough, theatrical and intimate.

Key projects: Ace Hotel New York (New York, 2009), The Dutch (New York, 2011), Le Coucou (New York, 2016), La Mercerie (New York, 2017), Lafayette (New York, 2018)

Tatjana von Stein

At Tatjana von Stein's London studio, art deco and mid-century references meet rich materials and dramatic lighting to create spaces with atmosphere. The practice has become closely associated with London's members’ club and hospitality scene, and also has a foothold in the Balearics. In 2023, von Stein also launched ‘Mise en Scène’, a collection of design objects and collectibles made with French artisans.

Key projects: Hotel Corazón (Mallorca, 2025), Làlia Social Club (Mallorca, 2022), 60 Curzon (London, 2025)

Taska Cleveland

Taska Cleveland's interiors are subtle, allowing architecture to be the protagonist. After working at Commune Design and serving as artistic director of Studio Shamshiri, she established her own Los Angeles studio, focusing on historic renovations and ground-up residential projects. A respect for existing structures define the work – exemplified by her restoration of Rudolph Schindler's How House and Frank Lloyd Wright's Taggart House.

Key projects: Taggart House renovation (Los Angeles, 2025), How House renovation (Los Angeles, 2026)

Vincent Van Duysen

Stone, timber, plaster and linen form the pared-back material vocabulary of Vincent Van Duysen, whose Antwerp practice has, since 1989, blurred the boundaries between architecture, interiors and product design. Hotel August in Antwerp, The Greenwich Hotel in New York and Casa M in Portugal exemplify his instinct for tactile restraint. Since 2016, Van Duysen has also served as creative director of Molteni&C.

Key projects: The Greenwich Hotel (New York, 2009), Molteni&C flagship (New York, 2016), Hotel August (Antwerp, 2019)

Yabu Pushelberg

George Yabu and Glenn Pushelberg have built a practice that can't be reduced to a single aesthetic. Interiors, architecture, branding, hospitality and retail move fluidly through their work, which includes landmark projects such as the W New York, Four Seasons Marunouchi Tokyo, Park Hyatt New York and Bangkok, and The London and Miami Beach Editions, alongside a longstanding association with Aman.

Key projects: Four Seasons Marunouchi Tokyo (Tokyo, 2002), The London Edition (London, 2013), Park Hyatt Bangkok (Bangkok, 2017), The Londoner (London, 2021)