When Kevin Seitz and Rob van Wyen – founders of furniture brand Studio Seitz – first stepped inside a former 1910 babka factory in Brooklyn, they weren’t actively looking for a loft space, let alone one in the flashy Williamsburg neighbourhood. Yet, its soaring ceilings, dramatic natural light and original timber beams were brimming with potential. Through a meticulous eight-year gut renovation, the 1,200 sq ft (111 sq metres) duplex was skillfully turned into the duo’s home, workspace and showroom for their Swiss-made furnishings.

‘One of the advantages of renovating your own home slowly is that you have the luxury of trying something before deciding whether it’s right,’ says Seitz. Adds van Wyen, ‘We work similarly with our designs; prototyping, living with things, and learning from them.’

A previous residential conversion had burdened the interior with heavy concrete stairs and synthetic bamboo floors that obscured the loft’s original character. The couple wanted to bring back that personality while incorporating visual and structural references to Seitz’s native Switzerland, including Zurich’s Helmhaus Art Museum, viaduct system and even chalet architecture. Over the course of the renovation – 85 per cent of which was carried out themselves, they estimate – the duo revealed and refined the duplex’s architectural origins. ‘A lot of work went into making the apartment feel simple,’ says van Wyen.

Insulation and electrical systems were concealed between exposed rafters, a move that helped maximise ceiling height and structural clarity. A disciplined palette – dark kitchen joinery, blackened steel window frames, tactile timber surfaces and stainless hardware creates cohesion throughout. ‘We reduced the number of materials and colours throughout the loft and repeated certain details. It helped connect spaces that had previously felt unrelated,’ van Wyen explains.

Swiss precision also carries through, from the geometric alignment of the layout (tested out many times using temporary walls) to the placement of circular power outlets and cabinet pulls. Straightening the main staircase freed up valuable ground-level space for a private bedroom, walk-in wardrobe and a laundry area. Unexpected spatial cavities yielded clever solutions, like a hidden mezzanine that’s now used as a 3D-printing workspace and guest loft. A former coat cupboard was transformed into a quiet study behind a frameless pocket door. 'Inhabiting the space during construction allowed us to observe how sunlight moves across seasons, directly shaping our artificial lighting scheme,' adds Seitz.

Of course, the apartment is filled with the pair’s designs, including the Studio Seitz Helm sofa, Limmat occasional table, Appenzeller sideboard and Chalet seating. Other Swiss design includes a stainless steel USM Haller shelve (‘The system almost disappeared into the architecture,’ van Wyen explains). There are also Scandinavian additions, like Reform kitchen cabinetry, and bathroom vanities, lighting and furniture from Vipp.

One particularly Swiss detail is a clock that hovers between the living area and kitchen. ‘The clock is an actual Swiss Railways clock,’ van Wyen says. ‘We tracked down the manufacturer and had them make one for us. It's illuminated and connected to a terminal so that the time is completely accurate. Leave it to the Swiss.’

A lot of the other items are more personal, collected from family, travels and fellow creatives. There’s an Andrew Zuckerman portrait of a snowy owl in the bedroom; handcrafted ceramics by Marcie McGoldrick; and a cowbell-shaped trophy won by Seitz's grandfather, a champion pistol shooter.

It all serves as a domestic showroom for their furniture brand. ‘Seeing furniture in person is incredibly important because there is a quality of the hand and a feeling that you can't get from a photograph,’ Seitz explains. ‘In our home you get that, but you also get the wider context. A showroom lets you touch and experience a piece, but there is an intimacy that comes from visiting someone's home and seeing how the designers themselves actually live with it.’

Marfa Stance was built on the belief that surplus materials are not something to conceal, but rather something to celebrate. Those familiar with the British label will instantly recognise its modular, fully reversible outerwear, which combines sophisticated patchwork construction with an approach informed by artist Donald Judd's functional design philosophy. Judd lived and worked in Marfa, Texas, from which the brand takes its name.

Crafted in Italy by female-led factories using surplus Japanese and Italian nylon, wool, and cashmere deadstock, the pieces are both utilitarian and luxurious.

This month, seven years after its founding, the brand unveils its first furniture collection, designed in collaboration with Stephen Kenn Studio. ‘We've never believed design should live within one category,’ says Marfa Stance’s founder, British designer Georgia Dant, who describes the move as the ‘logical next step'.

A meeting of minds

The choice of Los Angeles furniture designer Stephen Kenn as a collaborator was a natural one, she recalls: his studio had supplied the furniture for the brand’s first New York flagship a few years earlier. Like Marfa Stance, Kenn embraces reclaimed materials, celebrating their history, irregularities and inherent character rather than seeking uniformity.

‘The way we think about a piece of outerwear, how it's made, what happens to the materials, how long it can live, how it can change with its owner, is actually very close to how Stephen approaches furniture,’ says Dant, who founded the brand in 2019 after leading men’s and women’s design teams at Burberry and Rag & Bone. ‘We share a belief in utility, longevity, and making something beautiful from what's already around us. This collaboration lets us take that philosophy somewhere completely new.’

For Marfa Stance, Kenn has created a series of three steel-framed chairs and a bench, each with a chunky seat upholstered in quilts made by Alabama’s Gee’s Bend quilters – a community of African American women living along a bend in the Alabama River in Wilcox County, where quilting traditions have been passed down through generations. Marfa Stance has collaborated with the community since 2022, transforming deadstock fabrics sourced from Italy into colourful quilted jackets and blankets.

‘When I first saw a Marfa Stance jacket I was transported back to some of my earliest days studying vintage military clothing,’ says Kenn. ‘The careful consideration and thoughtful details evoked an admiration and immediate kinship. I couldn’t help but wonder, if this jacket were a reversible slip cover, what would it look like?’

The chairs are the answer to Kenn’s question. Each is upholstered in a Gee’s Bend quilt and installed at a different Marfa Stance store – Montecito, Chicago, Madison Avenue in NYC, and Chelsea in London – inviting customers to experience the collaboration first-hand.

The chairs are based on two of Kenn's existing designs – the Inheritance Collection – with its blackened steel frame and cotton webbing and leather belts holding loose chunky cushions – and the Ease Collection, with its curved upholstered form made from a combination of different foam densities providing both structure and softness.

Following their in-store debut, the chairs will be available to buy online, with prices on enquiry.

Due to the unique nature of the quilts, each chair is one of a kind and made to order in Los Angeles by Kenn’s small team and local vendors, many of them family-run businesses in East and South LA. They are designed to be repaired and adapted, acquiring character through continued use. Marfa Stance hints that more home pieces could follow. For now, the chairs demonstrate a clever and considered brand expansion that carries Marfa Stance's emphasis on adaptability, craftsmanship and longevity from wardrobe to home.

Le Monde Béryl, the luxury footwear brand, has been around for a decade, but its references are much older. Founders Lily Atherton Hanbury and Katya Shyfrin – who hatched the idea for a business on a London park bench in 2016 – launched the label with a velvet Venetian slipper, a flat that originated in Northeast Italy in the 19th-century and later found favour among gondoliers owing to its grippy, rubber sole.

Le Monde Béryl has since grown to encompass dozens of other modern silhouettes, from minimalist Mary Janes to low-heeled riding boots to shearling lined aprés-ski slippers, and, in doing so, has found a cult global following, particularly in the US. The time felt right to open Le Monde Béryl’s very first permanent brick-and-mortar boutique in New York.

Atherton Hanbury and Shyfrin found the perfect home on Manhattan’s Madison Avenue, a short walk from Central Park, the Frick and Sotheby’s headquarters – a fact that ‘spoke to many of our interests and the influences behind the brand,’ Atherton Hanbury tells Wallpaper*.

‘It just felt like a sign,’ Shyfrin adds.

The duo enlisted London-based art advisor Silka Rittson-Thomas along with London and Milan-based design firm Tutto Bene to bring Le Monde Béryl’s world to the Upper East Side. ‘I wanted it to feel like a collector's home, where everything is purposefully selected for its own individuality and beauty,’ says Atherton Hanbury. ‘We wanted the space to feel dreamlike and to offer a sense of discovery.’

The 67th Street storefront was long and deep, a feature that the design team wanted to accentuate, rather than cloak. Rittson-Thomas saught to introduce theatricality into the space, a feeling based on the founders’ mutual love of dance and antiquity, as well as moodboard references that ranged from Pina Bausch’s dance studio, The Hunger, starring David Bowie and Catherine Deneuve, and Club Silencio in David Lynch’s Mullholland Drive.

The boutique needed to serve ‘as a place of discovery and calm, capable of being activated at any given moment,’ as Rittson-Thomas explains. ‘The idea of obscuring and revealing became the main thread of the design.’

Visitors enter the boutique via a set of concrete stairs into the deep space. A dark chocolate-coloured carpet underfoot guides them along the L-shaped floor plan. The main, corridor-like space is lined with wood cabinetry, which showcases Le Monde Béryl’s latest creations, such as snake-effect pumps and supple leather ballet flats.

Like a theatre, the cabinet’s doors can be open or shut, allowing for different spatial configurations and peekaboo moments; as does a dramatic, blush-coloured curtain and matching roller shades. ‘The entire concept grew from Silka’s initial idea of concealment and reveal, and there are small moments throughout the store that play with what is shown and what is withheld,’ says Tuto Bene’s Felizia Berchtold.

Mirrored surfaces heighten that sense of seen and unseen. Some trace the lower level of the cabinets, showcasing the shopper’s feet as they float through the showroom. It’s one of the designers’ favourite moments.

‘At certain angles, what emerges most clearly is the reflection of your feet and the shoes you are trying on, while the rest of you almost disappears,’ Berchtold explains. ‘There is something intimate about seeing only fragments of yourself – the idea that luxury can also be about privacy, rather than constant exposure.’

Objects from Rittson-Thomas personal collection made it into the store too, like metal-frame chairs designed by Mats Theselius, Murano sconces and an antique repoussé mirror, which nods to Le Monde Béryl's original Italian inspiration. The founders plan to rotate out vitrines with works of art and other ‘curatorial moments’.

‘Shoes are about tactility and a physical reaction, the second you put them on, you have a response,’ Shyfrin explains – a feeling the co-founders hope their customers will also feel when inside the boutique.

Adds Atherton Hanbury, ‘It feels like a space, not a store.’

Le Monde Béryl is located at 23 East 67th St, New York, NY 10065, USA

Dark and moody interiors serve up a delicious sense of mystery. Drawing from Gothic narratives, whether Bram Stoker’s Dracula or Netflix’s Wednesday, spooky décor does feel rather glamorous. While you may or may not have a haunted manor or abandoned castle to adorn, ahead of Halloween, we've put together a selection of six small accessories that show the darker side of design.

If you were fortunate enough to be a member of the Medici court five centuries ago, you might spend your evenings playing a game of Goose. The amusement, considered one of the world’s first mass-produced boardgames, entailed rolling dice and moving pieces around a spiralling path, with the aim of being the first to reach its centre, while avoiding medieval hazards like wells, prison and death. Winning, of course, required a pinch of luck.

Ginori 1735, the Italian porcelain-maker, has been in business for nearly as long as the game of Goose – and for its latest collection of tableware and objects, the company wanted its customers to quite literally try their luck. Called Fortunae, the collection draws directly from early Goose boards, which featured auspicious illustrations of lucky charms, in addition to depictions of the game’s namesake waterfowl.

Ginori's offering includes an array of functional objects that are inspired by fortuitous symbols around the world. There’s an ashtray, bordered in lucky red glaze, that features a horseshoe illustration; dessert plates printed with a cornicello, the horn-shaped amulet that wards off the evil eye; and a small oval box topped with a celadon-glazed dragonfly, a good omen in many cultures.

Others items have more literal references to the game of Goose, as with one whimsical jar illustrated with a posy of four-leaf clovers and topped with an adorable gander-shaped lid. The centrepieces of the collection is a round tray can doubles as a resting place for trinkets or teacups, as well as an elegant board for your very own medieval dice game.

Fortunae arrives just in time for gifting season, but is perfect year-round for anyone in need of a wish or a bit of luck. But we wouldn’t judge if you wanted to hoard these pretty talismans for yourself – fortune, after all, favours the bold.

Brooklyn-based Virginia Sin started her eponymous home goods brand with one premise: ‘to spread warmth and happiness to every home by infusing delight and function into every creation.’

From that manifesto, a series of essential home objects grew into a collection defined by the tactile materiality of ceramic, transformed into essential shapes that just about suggest a function. Looped organic forms become a bookend of a toothbrush holder, and extruded profiles are curved into a lamp shade or a wall hook.

Given the distinctive use of material that has defined the studio until now, it is perhaps surprising that Sin’s latest launch features a very different language: titled Ritual, the new series of objects features some of the objects from the brand’s portfolio as well as new typologies, all made of stainless steel and aluminium.

A butter dish, tray, lidded box, waste bin, tissue cover, and toothbrush holder: those objects, the designer notes, that ‘we reach for without thinking.’

While some of the objects’ silhouettes nod to the brand’s existing collections, others feature a starker composition, led by the new materiality. ‘Clay taught us our language,’ she says. ‘It taught us softness, restraint, utility, and the importance of the hand. With Ritual, I wanted to see if that same language could move into metal. The material is harder and more exacting, but the intention is the same: to make everyday life feel more artful without making it feel overly precious.’

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As many contemporary designers increasingly identify as artists, making one-off furniture pieces that turn into collectible artworks, so the two creative disciplines mix and traditional boundaries dissolve. Design galleries show paintings; art fairs exhibit chairs.

The concept of ‘art furniture’ is not new, having emerged in the 19th century with the Aesthetic and Arts and Crafts movements and seen successive waves of exploration since then. Seating, in particular, has long been a vehicle for artistic expression that moves beyond function; alluring for its deep engagement with the human body, artists turn to the format as sculptural medium. Today, it feels like furniture has become a connective thread between the design and art worlds.

So as the behemoth Frieze contemporary art fair comes to London (on until 18 October), we scoured the booths of international galleries – squeezed into tents in Regent’s Park – to find the furniture bringing design to the party. Here are our seven top picks.

‘Bosa Bosa Chair 11’ (2026) by Rio Kobayashi

London-based Rio Kobayashi has garnered a following for his playful furniture pieces that often transform vintage finds with experimental carpentry and decoration. ‘Bosa Bosa Chair 11’, shown with Kate MacGarry, saw Kobayashi repair an antique oak swivel chair and decorate it with mini black and white brushes tied together with blue and red thread. The effect is part mohawk, part crazed broom.

‘Bosa Bosa’ means ‘messy hair’ in Japanese. ‘I liked the idea of repairing and transforming an old chair while adding something like hair to it,’ Kobayashi tells Wallpaper*. ‘Messy hair creates a particular sense of attachment – it can make you want to take care of someone or something.’ Kobayashi has also carved away parts of the chair, removing the dark varnish finish to reveal the raw wood beneath, and punching two holes in the backrest.

‘afterimage of beginning 026-642’ (2026) by Choi Byung Hoon

This ash wood and natural stone cabinet by Korean artist Choi Byung Hoon is presented by Busan-based Johyun Gallery. It appears as a stack of carefully balanced, sleek black boxes set in contrast with blocks of rough, organic stone; a dialogue between natural beauty and human intervention. Seoul-based Choi has carved out an important place in Korea’s art furniture market, and the gallery describes his work as merging the ‘practical object-ness of furniture’ with the ‘sophisticated aesthetics of art and a craftsman’s dexterity’.

‘Bent Around With Love Handles’ (2009) by Martino Gamper and Francis Upritchard

Turin-based Galleria Franco Noero presents an array of chairs by Italian designer Martino Gamper, including ‘Bent Around With Love Handles’, which Gamper designed with his wife, the sculptor Francis Upritchard, for an exhibition in 2009. A four-legged metal base is combined with a curved, plywood patchwork seat and bright green modelling clay sculpted to become bulbous handles.

‘Survival: Protect me…’ (2018) by Jenny Holzer

American artist Jenny Holzer makes literal statements with her work, wielding text through installation and sculpture to offer political and social commentary. In ‘Survival: Protect me…’, presented by Kukje Gallery, the words ‘protect me from what I want’ are engraved onto a bench made from dark labradorite stone. But what if what I want is to sit on her bench?

Bench by Giuseppe Ducrot

Italian sculptor Giuseppe Ducrot makes work that draws on classical and Baroque styles, interpreting these through a loose and expressive contemporary approach. 'Panca verde' (2026), his glazed ceramic bench on show with Galleria Lorcan O’Neill, possesses a decorative grandeur, and wouldn’t look out of place at a palace or cathedral – which is apt, because Ducrot regularly makes pieces for churches and cultural institutions across Europe, including Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome.

‘Carbonated Express’ (2026) by Steph Huang

Steph Huang’s bar cart is not conceived as a design object, but the London-based Taiwanese artist did turn to the medium of catering furniture to explore systems of mass production and commerce in the food industry. The steel and aluminium ‘Carbonated Express’ cart – on wheels and with a wooden handle carved to look like a baguette – is part of a special presentation from London’s Public Gallery dedicated to Huang’s work, which also features a playful wall light made using a Perelló olive can.

‘Day Tracker’ (2025) by Anna Gonzalez Noguchi

A series of golden, powder-coated steel stools by Anna Gonzalez Noguchi is presented by Shanghai-based Gallery Vacancy. Each stool has a Japanese kanji character cut into its seat, which correspond to the days of the week – while also referencing elements or phenomena in nature. The work, which was showcased outdoors at the Liverpool Biennial last year, is dedicated to the Japanese-Spanish artist’s grandmother, who lives with dementia and regularly records the date and weather. The stools, presented at Frieze in a circle, can be connected or dispersed in different arrangements, reflecting the potential for confusion in those affected by dementia.

In the moment when late summer slips into autumn, attention naturally shifts from beach villas and pool cabanas to cosy woodland retreats, where the chill in the air is welcomed. In New Hampshire, one such property provides a family getaway to suit both seasons, thanks to a colourful-yet-grounded and nature-driven renovation courtesy of Minneapolis- and New York-based Yond Interiors.

This old horse barn had been moved onto the clients’ property many years previously. Painted an auspicious shade of electric green across the exterior, the inside is surprisingly raw and natural, with so much exposed wood that it actually needed toning down a touch. 'It’s harder when you have to build character into the project,' says Yond Interiors founder Julia Miller. 'But this was the opposite. There's so much here that our job was to soften some of it, to make it really cozy and comfortable.'

The three-bed, three-bath residence includes a lofty double-height living space with columns, beams, joists and boarding all left bare. By the time Miller and her team were brought on, the layout, the staircase to the upper level and some of the finishes had already been completed. Their job was to help the interiors feel more stylish and intimate, without compromising the building’s character. 'It’s old and rugged, so we had to be kind of careful when adding a ton of new stuff,' Miller says. 'You can't just have drywall.'

One approach to complementing the expanses of rough timber was to wallpaper generously. Originally from Mexico and having lived internationally, the client had gained an appreciation for colour, pattern and texture, so expressive wall coverings were welcome. From a 'classic cabin' design featuring ducks in the powder room that 'looks like it could’ve been there for 50 years', according to Miller, to a Japanese-influenced print in the primary bedroom, these treatments helped to steer the nature-leaning colour direction for other surfaces, furniture and decor pieces.

In the kitchen, the green tiles across the backsplash were created by New Zealand-based ceramicist Lucy McMillan, who presses different clays to produce a marbled effect across each unique tile. '[The client] wanted these crazier little moments, and this was one of them,' says Miller. 'It’s the perfect place to do something completely unexpected.' Stone countertops with similar patterning also offset the millwork, and a pair of Allied Maker’s Arc Dome pendant lamps over the island visually bring down the ceiling height.

Rugs were another tool for subtly softening the architecture. 'They're not as punchy as they might be if you were interacting with them on a vertical surface,' says Miller. For instance, a yellow carpet based on an Art Deco pattern anchors another unexpected moment in the dining room, where an ash dining table coated with Farrow & Ball’s Bancha green and chairs with two-tone dark leather seats and peacock-blue mohair backs create a layered assemblage. 'By diversifying the materials on these chairs alone, we were able to give something quite special to this room,' Miller adds.

A mid-century-style pendant lamp overhead is one of several winks to the era, with others including the yellow colour of the large, ruched-fabric primary bed and the shapes of the vintage-inspired living room sofas. Yond’s sister brand, Brunel, custom-designed the majority of the furniture and lighting pieces for the residence. A coffee table with fabric-wrapped legs and a flat walnut top was born from the need for something lightweight and durable that wasn’t entirely wood or stone, but that you could still rest a coffee cup on. 'It was a genuine exercise in how to add softness to this room and build a workable surface,' Miller says.

Other items sourced to complement the bespoke pieces include the ceramic-front Riva Sideboard by Patricia Urquiola for Cimento, a Souvenir Table Lamp resembling a conch shell from Kawabi, plus lounge chairs and several decor objets that are all vintage. Textile art again helped to cover large expanses of the wood, including a square tapestry in the living room and a large, brightly coloured and highly textured work hung above the staircase—a family heirloom of the client. 'It's super meaningful to her, and it really helped to soften this space and give this wall a lot of interest,' Miller says. 'I think otherwise it would have been really difficult to hang art here.'

Filled with unusual colour combinations, plenty of pattern and texture, and touches of whimsy, the home invites a sense of discovery as more and more time is spent enjoying its spaces. Spaces in which it only feels appropriate to wrap up in a blanket, sink into the furniture and experience the New England foliage beginning to change outside the window.

Iittala and Byredo launch Ljus, a collaborative collection first announced earlier this year that explores light through glassmaking and scent. The collection includes a candle stand, a candle ornament, a light refractor, an incense holder and a diffuser, merging Byredo fragrances and Iittala’s heritage in glassmaking.

'We wanted to create a small collection that explores the material expertise of both brands and enters the world of the home with this more ritual approach,' says Janni Vepsäläinen, Iittala creative director. 'Lighting a candle is a beautiful, meditative moment. The scent enters your nose and fills the room, and glass works as a beautiful companion for that living light. They sort of complement each other. This conversation between glass and light really was the beginning.'

Light in particular is a concern of Vepsäläinen and an element that becomes integral to the everyday rituals both Iittala and Byredo represent. 'Being from Northern Europe, we also share an understanding of the northern light, which shifts from complete darkness in the winter to eternal sunshine in the summer,' she explains. 'This is a theme I often approach in my projects at Iittala, because it’s such a unique quality for a brand that lives and breathes in this Nordic environment.'

Glass and flames come together in the objects, which carry a timeless quality and whose forma reflect the warmth of their craft. Each object is handcrafted in Iittala's glass workshop, resulting in subtle variations that enhance the personality behind their design and manufacturing.

The pieces of the ‘Ljus’ collection combine classic home fragrance designs with new ways to approach such objects. The ornate forms of the pieces are declined in a series that includes a thick candle stand, an ornament designed to sit on top of a candle to refract and enhance its flame, and a 'refractor', imagined to encase the candle to create a mesmerising interplay of light and glass.

The last is the piece that, for Vepsäläinen, most reflects the collection's spirit, and the starting point of the series. 'It’s a piece that really beautifully demonstrates the conversation between crafted glass and living light,' she notes. 'There’s something about the integrity and the intricate details of crafted glass in this object. You can almost feel the process of glassblowing, how the molten glass has been formed.'

The series also includes an incense holder, and the same silhouette found in the Refractor is translated to a fragrance diffuser vessel.

'The strongest shared value [between Iittala and Byredo] is a belief that objects can carry emotion and meaning, as well as function,' concludes Vepsäläinen. 'There’s this Nordic understanding of design: that it should always serve a purpose and be part of people’s everyday lives.'

Pioneering Portuguese artist Joana Vasconcelos has a propensity to reimagine the everyday with bold, larger-than-life expressions, famously once turning tampons into a chandelier, and metal pots into a pair of monumental high-heeled shoes. ‘You can only do a great project when you find the right place: a museum, a location or a client,' Vasconcelos once told us. For her latest commission, she found the latter two of those: the New York apartment of Randi Charno Levine, the former US ambassador to Portugal, in a BIG-designed tower in West Chelsea.

The apartment was designed by Kelly Behun, whom Levine chose for her thoughtful approach to a curated home. ‘I had seen a number of projects by Kelly and her team and was struck by how they balanced restraint with real warmth; nothing felt forced, and nothing felt like it was there simply to impress,' says Levine. ‘That sensibility, of letting objects and art complement each other within a space rather than compete, was exactly what I was looking for. Kelly and I worked closely to ensure that each space was beautiful, but also functional and comfortable for both entertaining and living.'

The space also had to accommodate an important art collection, gathered over decades and featuring significant pieces by the likes of Tschabalala Self, Jenny Holzer, Cecily Brown and Hank Willis Thomas. ‘Much of my collection reflects my life in cultural diplomacy: pieces that came out of friendships with artists, or moments when a work resonated strongly and I knew that I wanted to live with it,' says Levine.

The apartment opens into a loggia with far-reaching views across Manhattan to the Empire State Building, Hudson Yards and the Hudson River, and Levine saw it as an opportunity to commission one of her favourite artists to intervene in the space. In 2023, Vasconcelos had taken part in an exhibition that Levine had curated during her time in Portugal, which brought together American and Portuguese artists. For the occasion, Vasconcelos lent one of her wrought-iron teapots, a monumental 4m-tall structure.

The artist then invited Levine to attend the A/W 2023 Dior show in Paris, for which Vasconcelos had created an immersive environment, featuring amorphous, tentacular shapes, clad in her signature mix of textiles, crochet and knitted surfaces, embellished with elements from the collection itself. ‘As guests, we sat among the various installations, becoming part of the artwork itself,' says Levine. ‘How often do we, as art lovers, get to live, play and rest within an incredible art installation?'

She knew Vasconcelos had to be the one commissioned for the apartment's loggia, and she worked closely with the artist to develop the piece, which is based on a theme of ‘garden of delights'. The elements defining the space include columns and abstracted sculptures shaped like bold, exaggerated palm trees, which metamorphose into seating elements. The colour and material palettes are quintessentially Vasconcelos, with layered textiles embellished by fringes, feathers, beads and ruffles, and some of the upholstery from Behun's interiors have been used to connect the loggia with the rest of the apartment. New York is in the background, and it's hard to say if the city complements the installation or the other way around.

‘There's an exuberance to Joana's piece that creates a strong focus within the space: it's quite literally the first thing you see when you enter the home,' says Behun. ‘It has such a beautiful and radiant spirit, one that really reflects Randi's personality – it's richly textured and layered, and I love how its character shifts as the light changes throughout the day. When it lights up at night, it's as though a small part of the city's storied skyline has been transported inside, albeit more colourfully. It so perfectly represents Randi, her passion for art and her unwavering support of artists.'

joanavasconcelos.com
kellybehun.com

Take a tour of Ambassador Randi Charno Levine’s Manhattan apartment by Kelly Behun

A version of this article appears in Wallpaper’s November 2026 Art Issue, available from 8 October, in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

For Kasseem Dean, the Grammy Award-winning rapper and producer best known as Swizz Beatz, furniture and family go hand in hand. He remembers, as a kid growing up in the Bronx, the squeak of the plastic that covered his grandmother’s couch and the ritual that accompanied her record cabinet, which also conveniently concealed adults-only barware.

‘Furniture’s always been a language of family,’ Dean tells Wallpaper* from his home in Harlem, one of several the mogul owns alongside his wife, fellow Grammy-winner Alicia Keys. ‘For me growing up, it was like, “Come sit down, come have a talk.” But furniture was always to be respected as well.’

All of those memories, not to mention decades spent amassing one of the world’s most significant collections of Black art, have informed Dean’s latest venture, a furniture collection in partnership with the contemporary home decor brand CB2. The collection, which comprises furniture, lighting and decorative accessories, is appropriately named for the producer’s family: Casa Dean. ‘I didn't want to just do something just to do it,’ Dean says. ‘My thing was more like, if we're gonna do it, what's the concept? What hole are we filling? And how can this inspire people?’

Dean’s fascination with design grew as he found success as a teenager, first as a DJ and later, at the ripe age of 18, the producer of DMX’s hit ‘Ruff Ryders' Anthem’. Dean jokingly recalls decorating his first home: ‘At that time there was no taste involved. It was just like, is it expensive? OK, I need that couch. What's the name brand of it? Gucci? OK, let's get it.’

But as his renown grew, Dean began to develop his own taste. ‘My style has grown tremendously throughout the years from travelling and seeing different walks of life,’ he says. ‘I'm just a creature of culture.’

In the Casa Dean collection, those sensibilities manifest in the line’s variety of colours, textures and silhouettes. There’s a curvaceous chair in a woolly taupe shearling; a linear console table topped with red enamel; a green velvet modular sofa with a gently swooping silhouette; artwork created in collaboration with artist ​​Megan Gabrielle Harris; and bubbly barware in smoked crystal.

‘I love where I landed with the diversity of the collection and the colours and the palettes,’ Dean says. ‘That took guidance. That took being open-minded and not just coming in with the fake celebrity energy. I was more of a student.’

That’s because designing furniture didn’t come into the picture until recently. Keys’ nail tech, the celebrity manicurist Dawn Sterling, introduced Dean to a mutual connection at CB2. ‘Next thing you know, I was in Chicago looking at fabrics,’ the rapper jokes.

Working alongside designer Evan Jerry of Studio Anansi, the collection began to evolve. ‘Swizz was especially thoughtful about the experience of each piece. How does a sofa sit? How does a material feel? How does the furniture encourage people to gather and connect?’ says Andrea Erman, CB2’s senior director of design and development for housewares. ‘He was equally interested in the emotional experience of a space as he was in the visual impact.’

‘People take furniture so [lightly], but just with this hands-on process with CB2 and their amazing team that they surrounded me with, I really got a front-row seat to the movie called “furniture”,’ Dean adds. The Dean family even got a front-row seat: he and Keys would review drawings and photos at the family dinner table.

Each piece in the Casa Dean collection is meant to foster what Dean calls ‘the creative home’. There are items that especially resonate with him, like the ‘Lam-Louie’ credenza, named for his father, who also worked as a DJ alongside hip-hop pioneer Cool Herc, that doubles as a DJ set-up. And a chair that’s designed exclusively for solo daydreaming. His favourite colour, British racing green, pops up throughout.

‘I just want people to just tune into themselves with this collaboration,’ Dean reflects. ‘The world is moving so fast and there's so much uncertainty that when you sit on this couch, or when you plug your set-up into this DJ set, or put some ice in this amazing bucket, you're doing it to reflect yourself.’

In a world increasingly dominated by social media, artificial intelligence and digital screens, it might do us some good to touch grass. That’s precisely what American paint company Benjamin Moore is proposing with its 2027 colour of the year – a verdant hue called Webster Green HC-130.

The annual reveal – also known as ‘COTY’ in the industry – marks one of the important colour-trend forecasts in the world. Webster Green, according to Benjamin Moore’s colour specialists, will be the ascendant shade in the months ahead, a prediction based on intensive market research.

‘When we looked across the past, present and future of colour trends, variations on green consistently demonstrated remarkable staying power,’ said Andrea Magno, Benjamin Moore’s vice president of brand, colour and integrated marketing, in the announcement. ‘Webster Green HC-130 reflects this timeless appeal by pairing reassuring stability with optimistic energy.’

Webster Green lies somewhere between a vibrant emerald and a rich evergreen and, according to the paint company, ‘supports the current desire for trusted, grounded hues that create distinctive and noteworthy spaces’. Indeed, designers have been relying on green for years to bring both sophistication and Mother Nature into space, whether coating a sitting room or kitchen cabinets or a doorframe. In fact, the shade is so versatile it’s often referred to as ‘nature’s neutral’.

Benjamin Moore’s 2027 choice builds on a years-long trend cycle of nature-inspired colours in the home. Its 2026 COTY, Silhouette AF-655, was a warm blend of espresso and charcoal grey, a hue that was indicative of a wider brown trend across interiors and fashion.

But Webster Green indicates something else, according to Benjamin Moore’s colour experts – a desire to reconnect with the past. In a marketing video, illustrator Tanu Vasu sits at an antique desk and proceeds to paint a whimsical interior that could be plucked straight from Bridgerton. The company also revealed seven other complementary paints that comprise its 2027 colour trends palette, including a warm neutral called Shakespeare Tan; a berry-tinged mocha called Townsend Harbor Brown; and a milk chocolate hue, Antique Copper.

It all augments Webster Green’s essence, one that Magno, the Benjamin Moore VP, describes as ‘rooted and forward-looking’. By painting a space in the company’s 2027 hue or any of its sister colours, you’ll be able to create rooms that feel ‘distinctive, collected and continually new’ – a perfect analogue foil to this ever-changing world.

When John H Johnson opened the South Loop, Chicago, headquarters of his publishing company in 1972, he called the new home of magazines like Ebony and Jet, among his other ventures, 'the miracle on Michigan Avenue.'

The 11-story building clad in bands of walnut travertine alternating with ribbons of tinted glass was the first downtown tower commissioned by a Black-owned company and became a universe unto itself. Its interiors – furnished wall-to-wall and floor to ceiling in explosive patterns, rich textures and modernist furniture – symbolised the dynamic expressions of Black life Johnson depicted across his media empire.

For nearly four decades, that architectural vision at 820 S Michigan Avenue remained virtually unchanged. Then, in 2010, the Johnson Publishing Company (JPC) had to sell its headquarters in order to cut costs and help stay afloat during a collapsing ad market. What was once the epicenter of Black media would soon become vacant, which sparked last-ditch actions from preservationists, artists, historians and more to document and save what they could from the building.

820 Ebony/Jet: Visions of the Johnson Publishing Company, an American Icon, a new book by the photographer Barbara Karant, is one such endeavor. It features new and archival photos of the building along with a foreword by Deborah Willis and essays by Cheryl Finley, E James West and Carla Williams, among others.

As soon as JPC left the building, Karant (who was teaching at Columbia College Chicago, which purchased the building) toured it. 'I was completely blown away,' she recalls. 'The interiors were so dynamic and lively and graphic and colourful.'

From 2013 until the building’s conversion to luxury residential units in 2017, Karant periodically documented every floor inside of the vacant building, photographing for six to eight hours straight when she came.

'I felt like it needed to be retained for posterity's sake, for historical purposes and cultural purposes,' Karant says. 'The vibrancy that still remained in this space was very compelling and intriguing to me. So I felt like I needed to set up some kind of project to document this interior before it disappeared.'

Karant's images aren’t time capsules. Rather, her frames of empty rooms picked clean serve as a post post-occupancy report, one final look at the center of gravity that was. The sun-bleached wallcoverings, delaminated veneers and scuffed furniture across the photographs depict decades of use. There is, of course, solemnity in seeing what is essentially the corpse of a culturally significant institution. But the fact that the headquarters’ interiors still looked so distinctive in the twilight of their life is still remarkable. Aging is its own kind of honour.

'I never really felt like it was abandoned because there was so much of the spirit of the company in the building,' Karant says. 'From the beginning, it was such a statement for JPC. It was deliberate and it empowered the company and everybody loved it. People were so committed to it that I think that's why everything may have stayed the same for the duration that it did.'

In 1969, Johnson hired John Warren Moutoussamy – a pupil of Mies van der Rohe at IIT and the first Black architect to become a partner in a major Chicago firm – to design its new headquarters. While glistening curtain-wall high rises defined the new downtown skyline, Johnson sought something different. As E James West writes in an essay in the book, 'it had to be Black. Black architect. Black enterprise. Black aesthetic.' Moutoussamy delivered a sophisticated tower whose mass imparted presence and staying power.

Eunice Johnson, the fashion director of Ebony and Johnson’s wife, oversaw the interiors and worked closely with Arthur Elrod and William Raiser on them. The Palm Springs – based designers gave each floor its own maximalist identity. To wit: The lobby was clad in panels of bronze and Mozambique wood and featured a monumental bronze sculpture by Richard Hunt along with red leather banquettes. The reception area of the ninth floor, which housed executive offices, featured a sculptural bronze-toned resin screen, a coffee table made of Mexican onyx, and an earth-toned checkerboard carpet. Some wallcoverings were stylized like peacock feathers and the famous Ebony test kitchen was enveloped in psychedelic, marbled laminate. Eunice’s own office, on the seventh floor, was adorned monochromatically in cream tones, with Space Age executive chairs, Italian lamps and African antiques.

JPC stuck to its aesthetic for the entirety of its tenure in the building. 'The idea that a corporation was so committed to a brand that was presented in their environment that they never renovated,' Karant says. 'They might have retrofitted or fixed things, but they didn't change it. I mean, it's pretty astonishing.'

One of her favorite design moments is a room with leopard-print carpeting that extends up the walls. 'It covers a fire extinguisher and the fire closet,' she says.

After JPC moved out, the building’s future became uncertain. It eventually received designation as a national landmark in 2017, sparing it from demolition; however its interiors were not protected, as is often the case with historic buildings. Rescue missions ensued. Its photo archives went to the Getty Research Center and the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC). Landmarks Illinois  managed to excise the Ebony test kitchen, which the NMAAHC acquired in 2023 for its permanent collection. With the blessing of Linda Johnson Rice, John Johnson’s daughter, the artist Theaster Gates retrieved over 15,000 objects from the space – 'anything movable,' he said. This included artwork, furniture, books, ephemera and fragments of its interior finishes, like wallpaper and carpet. 'So much was built into the architecture that you had to take large pieces of wall with you just to remove some things,' Gates recalled. 'You had to choose the cut to save the body.'

Evidence of this shows up in Karant’s photos, too. The building was not quite a shell, but it had been picked over. 'What's left behind is kind of always a bit of interest because it tells a story about what came before and it tells a story maybe about what's going to come afterwards,' she says.

And what comes afterward is, in some ways, still unfolding. In 2017, Columbia College College Chicago sold the building to developers who converted it into luxury condos. None of the JPC interiors remain, but the way they shaped the thousands of people who came through them and what their memory might yield remains to be seen. The daringness of JPC to create a corporate headquarters that was fully in its style remains peerless.

Karant hopes the ambition still serves as an inspiration. 'There was a residual message left in their departure,' she says, noting that she hopes the book offers a way to remember and appreciate everything the Johnson Publishing Company achieved.

'What I was trying to understand was, what does it actually mean to make light,' says Gabriel Hendifar, artistic director of Apparatus. The question led him to Act V: Afsaneh, the New York design studio’s first new collection in five years, and a meditation on creativity, knowledge and the cycles of life.

'I really needed a moment to understand what I was saying and why,' he says of the time between collections. Hendifar had created an impressive body of work over the past 14 years, and wanted to consider 'the kinds of things and the ways of making that feel relevant now.'

In previous Acts, he channeled the glamour of late-1970s New York, the 'sparkly creative expression' of the Wiener Werkstätte, a reimagining of his family’s Iranian history and a playful vision of the future. With Act V, 'I am trying to make sense of where we are collectively by looking back at the cycle of the seed and the flower, and what it can mean for us to hold ideas dear and to amplify them.'

Afsaneh, which is both his mother’s name and the Persian word for fable, unfolds in four series: Esfand, the seed, symbolizing the mother; Gol, the flower, the amplification of the seed; Rahvi, the serpent and collector of knowledge; and Jahaan, the cosmos, where the seed, flower and knowledge are shared. As for materials, Hendifar explains, 'We’re working with materials that say something about the future, and something about the past, and place the work in an atemporal place.'

The seed becomes the collection’s building block, appearing in sconces, vessels and an incense burner. 'They feel like their own little universe, like they hold the entirety of the cosmos,' Hendifar says. In Gol, cast-glass seeds are enveloped by large fiberglass shades that suggest (depending on one’s point of view) flower petals, jellyfish or octopuses. 'This is the seed wrapped in beauty as a way to both protect it and attract the people who are meant to seek it,' he adds.

The amulets in Rahvi are crafted from seven semi-precious stones, including tiger’s eye, lapis lazuli and red jasper. Like the flower, they embody both amplification and protection. 'This is almost like a spiritual starter kit for leaning into the light,' he jokes. The final series, Jahaan, centers on the table. 'It’s where we gather to share knowledge. It’s where we gather to share food. The table is the idea of community.'

As with previous Acts, Afsaneh incorporates scent and performance. The fragrance, with notes of damask rose and oud, evokes what Hendifar calls 'moonlight in a desert rose garden.' This year he debuted five short films, made in collaboration with the Martha Graham Dance Company. Hendifar, who grew up as a musician and self-described theatre kid, sees film as another block in building each Act. 'It allows me to say a lot of things in a way that isn’t always so direct…it can feel like a collage.'

When scheming a new collection, he asks, 'What are we telling people in movement, sound and music? And what is the moment when we are gathering in a room together? What does it feel like to be at the party?'

For Hendifar, it’s about creating a world people want to enter, and leaving them with something that lingers long after they leave.

Victoria Beckham has added another string to her bow. The fashion designer, founder of the eponymous fashion label and beauty brand, has now ventured into the world of homeware, unveiling her debut collection with Westwing (which will be available to purchase from 12 October).

Discover Victoria Beckham's debut homeware collection

Like her runway designs, the collection is minimal and chic, featuring tableware, textiles, and decorative objects. Beckham was inspired by the idea of designing ‘fashion for the table ’ and creating a striking tablescape that balances elegance with informal dining.

The collection aims to elevate everyday gatherings. ‘Home is where some of life's most meaningful moments happen, and this collaboration felt like a natural way to explore that world through the same lens of design, craftsmanship, and attention to detail that defines everything we do as a brand,’ says Beckham.

The Arts and Crafts movement in 19th century Britain inspired the designs. Silver, deep green and whites define the palette, while hammered finishes and simple silhouettes bring the collection together. Beckham also wanted to include elements of her ready-to-wear and accessories collections; eagle-eyed users may spot chain motifs and shell detailing on the pieces that channel the runway.

For German homeware brand Westwing, the collaboration continues to expand its presence in the UK after the launch of its business in the country earlier this year.

‘Partnering with Victoria Beckham is a defining moment for Westwing,' says CEO Andreas Hoerning. 'Her unmistakable aesthetic has shaped contemporary fashion for years, and we are proud to bring that same vision into the world of Beautiful Living. This Collection creates a natural dialogue between fashion and interiors, offering design lovers a new way to express their personal style at home’

The Westwing | Victoria Beckham Collection will be available exclusively at Westwing from 12 October 2026 online and in all Westwing stores westwing.co.uk

A glass artist and material researcher, Lulu Harrison works at the cusp of historical and contemporary glassmaking. A self-taught glass artist ’specialising in glass alchemy’, she is inspired by primitive forms and techniques, which she develops through a practice aimed at working with local and waste materials.

The designer has now been announced as the recipient of the Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust and Sanderson's Rising Star Craft Award, for which she will receive a £25,000 bursary in support of her practice's future development. The award is part of the British company's commitment to supporting a new generation of creative craftspeople, and a speculative look at how innovative artisanal approaches can help move the industry forward.

'What distinguished Lulu Harrison was not only the quality of her craftsmanship, but the strength of her vision for the future of glassmaking and her commitment to ensuring this remarkable artistry continues to evolve and thrive,' says Sanderson Design Group CEO and QUEST chair Lisa Montague, who led a jury including journalist Debika Ray and Wallpaper* design critic Hugo Macdonald.

Now based in Oxfordshire, Harrison first approached glass while studying for an MA in Materials Futures at Central Saint Martins, from which she graduated in 2022. 'Having previously lived in Cornwall, I already had links with local fishermen and was particularly interested in working with waste from the fishing industry,' she says. That kickstarted a process of discovery that led her to learning about traditional practices that employ limestone from local shells as the main ingredient for her exploration of glassmaking.

'Her work demonstrates a compelling harmony between traditional making techniques and emerging technologies, creating new ways for craft to be communicated, understood, and embraced by future generations,' continues Montague. 'Through her innovative approach, alongside her commitment to research, sustainability, and the preservation of specialist skills, she embodies the spirit of innovation that has always driven great craft forward. This builds a bridge between heritage and progress that will inspire the next generation of makers.'

Earlier in 2026 London-based designer Michael Anastassiades announced he was going to close his eponymous lighting brand. 'What comes next for me as a designer is a deeper focus on the creative process, and the freedom to explore new directions in design, in all its forms,' he said at the time.

The next chapter in the designer's practice has just been revealed, and it involves a partnership with long-term collaborator, Italian lighting company Flos. Several of the designer's most celebrated lighting pieces from his eponymous collection will now enter the Flos portfolio, and the company will integrate the designs into its catalogue, which will involve manufacturing and distribution.

'The inclusion of Michael Anastassiades’ heritage collection in the Flos catalogue is the natural consequence of a collaboration that began more than ten years ago and has produced beautiful projects and great successes,' said Piero Gandini, the executive chairman and artistic supervisor of the Flos B&B Italia Group. '[It’s] Michael’s completion of a collaboration aimed at future milestones.'

Over the past 15 years, the creative partnership between Anastassiades and Flos has been running in parallel with the designer's own production. His lighting work, the designer observed, started as 'an open-ended experiment [and] grew organically into a body of work that reflects a deeply personal journey'.

Meanwhile, the work he created with Flos offered a more nuanced, industrial and commercial direction to the poetry that defines his approach. Anastassiades' brilliance at illuminating a space has been reflected in his ability to transform a lighting object into a delicate gesture, made possible by a rigorous design process, and aided by sublime materiality and technology (see our video series, The Stuff That Surrounds You, for more on his experimentation and a look at the objects he most treasures).

With Flos, Anastassiades has created classic objects such as the ‘IC’ series, where an illuminated sphere balances on a brass rod, or the ‘Coordinates’ chandelier, featuring geometric compositions of lighting objects that become micro-architectures to light up a space.

'Since its start in 2011, my collaboration with Flos has become an important part of my practice as a lighting designer,' comments Anastassiades. 'Now it feels like a natural progression that the pieces I have developed under my own name over the past 20 years will continue with Flos.'

To most, the pop artist Roy Lichtenstein will forever be associated with Ben-Day dot patterns, comic strip subjects, and whaams, blams, and pows. But Lichtenstein, who created more than 5,000 artworks in his lifetime, loved to experiment in other mediums, including printmaking, sculpture, film – and, as an auction at Sotheby’s proves, furniture.

Back in the late 1960s, Lichtenstein designed a brass and glass coffee table, one of which is part of an online sale happening now at the global auction house. The sale, which coincides with a blockbuster Lichtenstein retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art opening this week, sheds light on this rare part of the artist’s practice – and also offers collectors the opportunity to seriously level up their living room.

‘Roy really dabbled in everything, and so this auction as a whole really demonstrates his versatility as an artist, his boundary-breaking approach to art making,’ says Keith Lebel, an assistant vice president in Sotheby’s contemporary art department. ‘This table represents an unusual foray into furniture design for him.’

The table is an extension of the Lichtenstein’s ‘Modern’ series, a vibrant body of work created in the 1960s that moved away from comic strip subjects in favour of geometric Art Deco motifs. Like the Modern paintings, the table features energetic shapes, as with its rounded, D-shaped legs and horizontal bands.

While experts don’t know precisely why the artist designed the table, they do know that it was made in an edition of three. Lichtenstein kept it for himself and his wife Dorothy to furnish their home in Southampton, New York. ‘This is an object that they lived with,’ Lebel explains. ‘He thought of it as a sculpture, but it was not this precious item not to be touched. It was certainly used.’

The other tables have equally legendary provenance: one went to legendary gallerist Leo Castelli, who swapped a Dan Flavin artwork for it. Meanwhile, the third went to artist Donald Judd in exchange for a sculpture (it’s since wound up in a private collection). ‘The only people who have ever owned these are just remarkable figures,’ Lebel says.

The Modern table as it’s known is part of two sales drawn from Roy and Dorothy Lichtenstein’s personal collection, one live in New York and one online-only. While the 21-lot live auction features works that will likely fetch in excess of $1 million, the online sale has markedly more accessible works, including the coffee table, which is estimated to fetch between $50,000 and $70,000.

‘I hope that collectors, both seasoned and new, will recognize this work as a really unique opportunity to acquire a work by Lichtenstein that is at once instantly recognizable and unusual,’ Lebel says. ‘It has that sort of old New York Art Deco glam that continues to be really appealing.’

Pow, even.

Selections from Reflections on Pop: Works from the Collection of Dorothy and Roy Lichtenstein are now on view at Sotheby's Breuer headquarters. 945 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10021, USA

In October, London’s Gallery Fumi welcomes 'Companions’, an exhibition of friendly-looking wooden furniture designed by Lukas Wegwerth and Corinna Dehn. The pair, who first met while studying at the University of the Arts in Berlin, have conceived a family of furniture clad in shingles inspired both by animal scales, wings and feathers, and by the vernacular architecture of Wegwerth’s home region in central Germany.

Part of their ongoing ‘Armadillo’ series, the six new works include two cabinets, a sideboard, a birdhouse, a dining table and a stand-alone screen. All feature the collection’s signature shingles, but with new experimentations in tone, density, and pattern. The wooden elements are sourced locally, often recycled, and processed in the designers’ own sawmill, while the colours come from natural pigments and ebonisation as well as traditional oil paints.

Working together, Wegwerth and Dehn apply the shingles to wooden structures, pushing each other in directions neither would arrive at alone, to always surprising results. Here, they tell us more about ‘Armadillo’, their partnership and their collaboration with Gallery Fumi.

Wegwerth and Dehn on their creative practice

Wallpaper*: When did you start collaborating with Gallery Fumi?

Lukas Wegwerth, Corinna Dehn: About 13 years ago. It started with ‘Crystallizations’, a series of broken ceramics that are ‘repaired’ through growing crystals in the cracks of the broken vases. Working together with Fumi has given us the opportunity to explore this process further over many years.

W*: Gallery Fumi focuses on designers and artists who blend traditional craftsmanship and innovative technologies. Are there any other creatives in the Fumi family who you find particularly inspiring?

LW, CD: We are fans of the organic, playful and architectural works of [Athens-based design studio] Voukenas Petrides. We collaborated on the very first ‘Armadillo’ furniture with them. While they came up with a shape, we developed the material strategy for the piece: it was cladded with shingles that we repurposed from the façade of our barn that we were renovating at the time. And we’ve always been fascinated by [ceramicist] Johannes Nagel’s processes and artistic works; we also worked together on the ‘Crystallizations’ series with objects he made.

And of course, Max Lamb’s distinctive way of crafting and constructing across materials and techniques continues to inspire us. We love Jochen Holz’s playful and sophisticated glass works and Saelia Aparicio’s very free spirited furniture and objects, among others.

W*: How did you two start working together?

LW: I trained as a cabinet maker before studying design and started my studio organically while I was still studying. Wood as a material and the forests I grew up surrounded by always shaped my design works.

CD: I studied fashion design and worked in the fashion industry for many years. As senior designer for Y-3, I worked in close collaboration with Yohji Yamamoto’s design team, contributing to the menswear and accessories collections. Since then I have started exploring different ways of working in the design field, among other things facilitating design workshops in Berlin’s youth prisons.

After many years of helping each other out and collaborating on smaller and bigger scale projects, we started working together more closely.

W*: ‘Armadillo’ is based on the wooden shingle, and in particular, the rounded shingles are used in buildings in Germany’s Vogelsberg region, where you have a studio. Can you tell us more about these buildings, and what they are used for?

CD: The Vogelsberg region is a widely forested volcanic region in the midst of Germany. The abundance of beech and oak wood and the local stone shaped the rural architecture. Most houses are grounded on a volcanic rock foundation and constructed as timber frameworks. The wooden shingles act as a protective layer; they wear off over the course of many decades while the actual framework is protected from the weather. The exact application and shape of the shingles’ ‘nose’ differs almost from one village to the other and from craftsperson to craftsperson, but the basic principle is always the same. Shingles had been used in all types of buildings from barns to mansions, from raw to ornamented and painted.

We are mainly inspired by the most simple ones. Time and weather let these facades become silvery and vivid. The rain shadow of each shingle is also a potential home for a range of wild bees – so the entirety of the facades does not only look like an insect wing seen under a microscope, they actually become inhabited by wild bees.

LW: I grew up in the region, in a farmhouse clad in beech shingles. I did not pay much attention to it as shingles were so normal for me, but thinking back, I feel really related to this material culture and the natural, gentle and ever-changing appearance of those buildings.

The traditional shingles of vernacular architecture are very regular, while your designs come in all shapes and sizes – why is that?

CD: Shingles are an architectural feature – that application to furniture needed some interpretation to make things work and to recreate the emotion we are inspired by. It might be true that in buildings the application is more regular, but weather and time and the use of a non-standardised shingle also reduce the feel of order over time.

But if we look at the other inspiration of our project, the animal skins, we see much more variety in size and direction of organisation around the body. A complex shape asks for more complexity and diversity of the shapes and sizes of shingles.

We were interested in combining these two realms – the vernacular building culture and the universal principle of scales in animal skins. Straight surfaces can be covered with rather large shingles, while curves need to be covered with much slimmer shingles in a wide range of shapes.

W*: This organic look, similar to scales and feathers, is reflected in the collection’s – and the exhibition’s – name. Do you see the various pieces as little creatures?

LW, CD: Yes, there is definitely a lively quality to the pieces. There is a dialogue between elements and shapes. The appearance differs from one piece to the other, sometimes the architectural references become stronger, in others the animalistic perception is more obvious. We think that a part of the animated perception is inherent to the material. Even a straight but weathered facade feels more animated with wooden shingles applied to it – so it seems to be coming from the shingle itself and is not only a result of their individual forms.

Additionally, we search for shapes that shingles can cover – it is actually not a material without limits. Certain shapes just do not go well with shingles, so we also follow the material logic on our search for shapes.

W*: What type of wood do you use for this, and where do you source the wood from? I believe you have your own sawmill in the Vogelsberg?

LW, CD: Sourcing is varied: repurposed beech shingles from our renovation site, oak beams from the repair of the timber framework, old handmade shingles we found stocked on the attic of our barn, leftover larch shingles from an architectural project that we worked on for the Crespo Foundation, an art foundation based in Frankfurt.

Making use of the sawmill is a part of the sourcing strategy for this project. It allows us to work super locally and process local wood. Vogelsberg’s vernacular buildings are defined by the local, natural materials: oak, beech, basalt stone for example.

The basalt also plays a role in our project. As in the buildings it serves to build out strong and durable details such as table tops in our case. We for example source the basalt stone from collection points to which farmers bring them when they become obstacles in their acres. This material dialogue that is very specific to the region is reflected in many pieces of the ‘Armadillo’ series.

W*: How do you work together to create these pieces? Corinna, you first work on the shingles and you shape and colour them yourself?

CD: The shingles are cut, shaped and coloured individually by hand. For some of the pieces the shingles are stained – I apply the stain in a way that creates colour gradients where different colours will blend into each other. Some pieces of the series are painted with linseed oil colours. We used these sometimes in a more transparent, light way where they are a nuance or hue of colour. Other times they are used in a way that they really cover the wood completely and highlight the texture of the different shingles.

We also investigated coloration techniques like ebonizing. This is a process using natural ingredients such as tannin, rust and lime which results in dark shades ranging from blacks and dark greens to dark browns.

W*: Lukas, you are in charge of creating the structures that will then be clad in the shingles. Where do you find the inspiration for the shapes?

LW: We develop the shapes together. Parts of the shapes are pre-planned, while many details develop over time and through experimentation. Covering the pieces with shingles requires starting at the bottom and growing the layer of shingles slowly moving from the ground up.

During the process of renovating my grandmother’s farm house, we visited a lot of farm house museums and looked at books about agricultural and vernacular architecture, traditional beehives and wooden toys. These were really strong sources of inspiration for us. We were looking for shapes that reflect the friendly and gentle attitude that we felt the shingle facades had – also something that is animate just as the facade itself is vivid and lively, seemingly but also in actuality by serving as a home for wild bees.

W*: Where are the pieces actually built? And how long would you say it takes to create one from start to finish?

LW, CD: Some were built in the Berlin studio, some were built in Vogelsberg studio. We decided to split the work following the seasonal advantages of working in the countryside. Colouring the shingles with the tannin, rust and lime required quite some space: it was perfect to use the garden and work outside. Whereas other pieces and steps of the process require different tools and machines, so working in the Berlin studio is then perfect.

A big challenge while working on the ‘Armadillo’ pieces is the slowness of the process. While it is really enjoyable to see the pieces grow and experience them becoming more and more animated, it takes a lot of time. A large piece like a cabinet will take 10 to 12 weeks from start to finish including the woodwork, the preparation of the shingles, the application and finalisation of all the details.

W: Do you have a favourite piece in the latest series?

LW: My favourite is a three-legged side table with a basalt stone top. I really love the material dialogue between the wood and stone. The shape of the structure and the variety of the different colourations of the shingles – I just feel very drawn to it.

CD: I love the high cabinet. I like its colours and the variety of the shingles – some have very beautiful gradients and others have very nice textures, so it really looks a bit like fur or feathers. A very gentle, friendly monster.

‘Companions’ by Lukas Wegwerth & Corinna Dehn, from 3 October – 28 November 2026, at Gallery Fumi, 2–3 Hay Hill, London, galleryfumi.com

Some of the pieces will also be part of Gallery Fumi's PAD participation, 13 - 18 October, 2026, Berkeley Square, Mayfair

A traditional showroom, at its core, is ‘something void of personality to showcase product only,’ says Alexia Beghi, a design director at Gensler. So, when carpet brands Tai Ping and Edward Fields tapped the architecture and design firm to dream up a joint showroom in New York, the teams set out to create the antithesis to that stiff, uninspiring setting.

Housed in midtown Manhattan’s A&D Building, the new flagship harnesses the energies of a cosy hotel lobby, high-end bar and elegant design atelier. Warm yet restrained, the showroom blends Tai Ping’s East Asian influence and Edward Fields’ midcentury roots — resulting in a unified vision built for settling in and getting inspired.

‘We wanted it to feel incredibly welcoming. We deliberately created a calm, almost transportive environment that feels like a respite from the energy of New York,’ says Kate Judd, managing director of the Americas for Tai Ping and Edward Fields. ‘We wanted it to feel completely non-transactional.’

The entry ignites that mood shift. Marked by vintage carved midcentury doors, the vestibule is enveloped in deep mauve Venetian plaster, wood paneling and travertine mosaic flooring that kindle serenity.

Conversely, the foyer flows into a bright reception area. Intentionally open for moving large carpets, the airy space features a custom three-panel tapestry full of Easter eggs tied to Tai Ping’s 70th anniversary, such as its pavilion roof silhouette emblem, and the showroom’s opening during the Year of the Horse.

Across the way, an illuminated, curved wall made of rippled glass blocks shapes a conference area and draws guests into the main showroom. There, white oak flooring and matching millwork form a cohesive backdrop for rugs and samples, ‘giving clients a familiar visual anchor to imagine the carpets in their homes,’ says Beghi.

The pom bar — for viewing carpet tufts in a wide colour range — adds a bit of drama with a whirlpool-like rug in rich tones under a custom stainless steel disc sculpture by Studio S II.

Throughout, archival pieces accessorise walls and surfaces, including Edward Fields’ early order books, Tai Ping ads from the 1960s and an original tufting gun from Hong Kong. These heritage objects ‘invite discovery and provide inspiration for palettes and patterns,’ says Beghi.

At the heart of the showroom, the lounge promotes intimacy and conversation. Guests can grab a complimentary drink — including Chinese tea, American whiskey and cocktails inspired by each brand — at the bar. Then, they can ease into inward-curving, velvet banquette seating, which hugs plaster columns, under a lowered ceiling with a lattice-screen-like design.

Guests may wish to make the showroom their go-to for rendezvous, but they can, at the very least, stay for much longer than a New York minute. ‘We really want people to feel comfortable dropping in, exploring the collections and spending time in the space,’ says Judd.

The Tai Ping and Edward Fields showroom is located at 150 E 58th St, Floor 11, New York, NY 10155

In 1972, designer Peter Opsvik created the Tripp Trapp, a child’s chair designed to evolve and change over the years. The chair, with its signature angled profile, was simplicity itself, endlessly reconfigurable with slots to raise and lower the height of the seat and footrest, along with provision for a safety bar for smaller children.

The chair was manufactured by Stokke, founded in Ålesund, Norway, in 1932. Today the company makes all manner of child and baby accessories, from the timeless Tripp Trapp through to prams, foldable baths, baby bouncers and toys.

The MoMA collaboration taps into the museum’s close connection with contemporary design – and its all-important retail arm – by bolstering the Tripp Trapp story with a new version that adds colour, collectability and an element of abstract, artistic charm. Stokke and MoMA logos are included alongside Opsvik's signature, while the red, pink, orange and blue seating and footrest can be mixed and matched.

‘At MoMA Design Store, we believe in products that seamlessly unite exceptional design with everyday life. Inspired by MoMA's colour palette, this chair pays tribute to a landmark children's product in MoMA's collection, celebrating its enduring legacy while bringing a new expression of this beloved icon to families today,’ says MoMA’s Chief Retail Officer, Jesse Goldstine, ‘It's a collaboration that reflects our shared belief that good design is for everyday living.’

Wallpaper* spoke to Tor Opsvik, Managing Director of the design company Peter Opsvik AS, and son of Peter Opsvik, along with Stokke’s VP Innovation, Martha Jørgenvåg, about this enduring product and the new collaboration.

Wallpaper*: When did it first become apparent that the Tripp Trapp design was on its way to becoming an icon? Was it instantly acknowledged from the start, or did its reputation take time to grow?

Tor Opsvik: There was no single moment when it became apparent that Tripp Trapp was on its way to becoming an icon. However, in 1973, Peter demonstrated the chair on a television programme. Afterwards, the station's switchboard was flooded with calls from parents wanting to know where they could buy it.

From that moment, sales began to grow. Within ten years of its launch, more Tripp Trapp chairs were being sold annually than there were children being born in Norway and the chair was well on its way to becoming an international success.

Its distinctive silhouette and visual expression quickly attracted attention, and its place in everyday family life helped generation after generation develop a lasting connection to the chair. It was bringing children of all ages up to the family table.

Over time, it became clear that Tripp Trapp was more than a product. As the design gained recognition and its distinctive silhouette became embedded in generations of families, the chair earned recognition as a true design classic. Its ability to remain relevant decade after decade, without significant alteration, reflects the enduring strength and timeless character of its original design.

I truly believe timeless designs are often out of step with prevailing trends when they are introduced. They do not fit comfortably into what already exists. Instead, they present a new visual and creative perspective, gradually reshape their category and ultimately outlive the trends that once made them seem unusual.

Tripp Trapp is a good example of this: a highly original design whose distinctive visual identity has remained relevant for more than 50 years. Today, it is a widely recognised piece of applied art, with museum representation that serves as a reflection of such recognition.

W*: Have there been any major changes in the way the chair is manufactured or even designed over the years? Or has it remained very consistent?

Martha Jørgenvåg: Innovation is not always measured by how much a product changes. Sometimes it is measured by how little it needs to change. Tripp Trapp is a good example of this. The chair's iconic design has remained largely unchanged since its introduction in 1972, which speaks to the enduring strength of the original vision. Rather than constantly reinventing the product, the focus has been on preserving the qualities that have resonated with generations of families.

W*: Have there been other design and colour collaborations and experiments before?

TO: Not like this one. For us, it is important to preserve the integrity of an icon whose strength lies in the clarity of its design. This partnership feels both unique and exciting. The Tripp Trapp MoMA edition succeeds in celebrating and honouring the visual identity and enduring design significance, while adding a fresh perspective through reversible seat and footplates. Families can bring their own personality to this classic design and make it part of their home in their own way.

W*: How did the MoMA collaboration come about?

MJ: Tripp Trapp has earned recognition over more than five decades as an enduring design classic. Its inclusion in museum collections, including The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, reflects the iconic status the chair has achieved through generations of families and its lasting relevance in design.

In 2012, Tripp Trapp was featured in MoMA's exhibition Century of the Child: Growing by Design 1900-2000, which explored influential examples of design created for children throughout the twentieth century. Building on this shared appreciation for design, the MoMA team approached us last year with the idea of creating a limited-edition Tripp Trapp to celebrate this unique legacy.

Working closely together, MoMA and our own teams explored how MoMA's signature colour palette could be incorporated while preserving Peter Opsvik's original design. Inspired by the creativity and individuality associated with childhood, the resulting colour combinations bring distinct character and playful expression to the iconic chair, remaining true to the timeless design that families have recognized for generations.

Tripp Trapp Chair MoMA Edition by Stokke

Store.MoMA.org, @MoMAdesignstore, Stokke.com, @StokkeBaby

The warm glow of Louis Poulsen’s three-shade PH lamp system, first designed in 1925 by lifelong collaborator Poul Henningsen, has come to epitomise Danish design. So it’s no surprise that every year, the historic lighting brand celebrates this incredible legacy with a limited-edition reissue of one of its classic designs.

Launched in 2014 to mark the 120th anniversary of Henningsen’s birth, the highly collectable reissues have included untreated copper lamps and amber-coloured pendants. This year, it’s the turn of an unusual, music-inflected piece: the ‘PH 1/1 Piano’ table lamp. Its swirling stem, inspired by the flag of musical notes and the twirl of treble clefs, manages to steal the limelight from the famous tiered glass pendant.

‘The original 1931 design of the “PH Piano” lamp has been respectfully scaled down and refined to offer greater versatility for contemporary living, functioning not just as a piano lamp but as a table lamp as well,’ says Monique Faber, chief design officer at Louis Poulsen. The lamp, which has not been manufactured since the late 1930s, will be available to purchase only until December 2026.

An architect, designer, and critic who often signed his essays with his initials (the hallmark of the limited-edition pieces, these letters proudly appear in gold at the base of the lamp), Henningsen was also a talented composer, songwriter and jazz aficionado. In the early 1930s, he turned his attention to music, creating this distinctive lamp as well as the PH Grand Piano, whose transparent acrylic lid reveals the instrument’s strings.

Offering a precise adjustment of the lighting direction, the ‘PH Piano’ lamp’s flexible curved stem is punctuated by a round, notehead-shaped element that functions as a counterweight to ensure stability while the user is playing. The frame is crafted in aged brass with fine hairlines, carefully lacquered to preserve the patina, and is paired with a dark brown fabric cord.

As for the lamp’s three-shade set (the ‘PH 1/1’, the smallest set in the PH system), it is made from four-layered, mouth-blown opal glass in a distinctive dusty terracotta hue. ‘Each shade is finished with a glossy exterior, while the inner surface is sand-blasted to a matte white finish. This combination of layers and finishes produces a beautifully soft, diffused light, ensuring exceptional visual comfort in any setting,’ say the Louis Poulsen team.

The earthy-coloured glass adds to the organic expression of the heritage design. Like every piece in the PH collection, the ‘Piano’ lamp also offers a glare-free, soft light that feels as natural as daylight and as warm as candlelight.

This is due to the PH system’s way of distributing light in gentle layers, a method inspired by the logarithmic spiral, a natural curve also found in seashells and plants. The top shade takes care of the brightest light, the middle shade redirects and softens it, and the bottom shade shields the eyes from glare.

The ‘PH 1/1 Piano’ table lamp limited edition 2026 will be available exclusively at selected stores and at louispoulsen.com from 1 October to 31 December 2026.

While Palm Springs, California has no shortage of marvellous midcentury architecture, not all of these historic homes were created equal.

The vast residence – completed by architectural designer Howard Lapham in 1966 and spanning 10,000 sq ft – is one of the largest and most impressive properties from the era within the city limits. A real estate developer bought it and, along with his girlfriend, hired Los Angeles-based interior designer Jessica Ayromloo to reanimate its capacious entertaining spaces and no less than 9 bedrooms 'They were looking for somebody who could re-envision it, but still keep the original aesthetic and bones,' Ayromloo tells Wallpaper*.

The sheer scale of the interior spaces could have been daunting. 'They're enormous,' said Ayromloo, whose initial thought was: 'What am I going to do with this giant gallery-sized living room that’s 60 feet long?' But she approached the project like a small boutique hotel, treating the main social space as a lobby.

Here, Pierre Paulin chairs that the clients had already bought at auction and various configurations of B&B Italia’s Camaleonda modular sofa – a design the clients dreamed of owning – are arranged to invite more intimate moments. 'If you're hosting a party, you want it to be conversational,' Ayromloo says. 'You can either sit and face the pool, or the fireplace. And if you get bored of this layout, you could always change it up.'

While retaining the classic mid-century features, Ayromloo dialled up the drama a few notches to live up to the 'party house feel.' Located in Palm Springs’ Movie Colony neighbourhood, the home lent itself to her aptly cinematic references. These included the 1968 sci-fi film Barbarella, whose sets and costumes inspired the home's mirrored and metallic finishes, curvaceous forms and highly textured surfaces. In the living area, these manifest as a fireplace clad in metal panels set against a reflective wall, amorphous coffee tables with shiny surfaces and a custom rug that stretches the full length of the room. 'I sometimes think of myself as more of a set designer than an interior designer,' Ayromloo says.

On the back wall, a trio of disc-shaped sculptures by LA artist Nicholas Biddle – one of which the designer discovered at Rhett Baruch Gallery, with the others commissioned in slightly different warm colour gradients – offers another movie nod, according to Ayromloo. 'In the really kitschy sci-fi film Total Recall, with Arnold Schwarzenegger, there's a woman with three breasts, and it reminds me of that,' she says.

Continuing in the dining room, a glass-topped table with mirrored legs and matching chairs all reflect a patterned Kyle Bunting area rug to create 'trippy' illusions. A Slinky-esque pendant light helps to resolve the tall ceiling height, while a mirrored-mosaic Space Curtain from Paco Rabanne presents a disco motif that will reappear later.

In terms of spatial reconfiguration, the kitchen received the most attention. Appliances were shifted around to improve the flow, with the stove landing below a cut-glass, mosaic-tiled hood. A long central island is accompanied by 'ice cream parlour' bar stools that could’ve been lifted straight out of The Jetsons, while the distinctive cabinet colour required a compromise. '[The client] wanted a green kitchen but super faded, and I actually wanted a darker green,' Ayromloo shares. 'So we met in the middle, and eventually landed on this desaturated pistachio.'

The same pistachio shade appears in the numerous guest bedrooms across Flavor Paper wallpaper, paired in geometric patterns with silver to match the patent leather bed frames and metallic linens. Meanwhile, the family room at the end of the property received a punchier injection of colour thanks to a painting by Ozzie Juarez sourced from the Frieze art fair, which informed the furniture choices. 'Here, the desaturated colours get a little more saturated,' Ayromloo explains. 'You’re dabbled in colour through the other spaces, and then come to the end of the rainbow.'

For the primary bedroom, a custom white-lacquer and polished-steel bed, silvery carpet, chainmail curtains and more metallic accents reinforce the Barbarella theme. This is taken even further in a stand-out powder room, where original gold mosaic tiles were replaced with silver—evoking the inside of a disco ball. 'We wanted to pay homage, but do our own thing in a way that goes with the rest of the house,' says Ayromloo. 'It's a disco ball party!'

Meanwhile, the mosaic tiles that surround the outdoor bar and lounge are iridescent, creating a mother-of-pearl backdrop for glowing Artemide Alphabet of Light numbers that divulge the home’s address. 'Who doesn't want to be inside of a seashell? We just need a mermaid posted up in there,' Ayromloo says.

A separate pool house was treated similarly, with pink and aqua decor and transparent furniture reminiscent of a life-size Polly Pocket toy. 'It speaks more to the outdoor lounge, with the iridescent pink tile and the blue of the pool,' Ayromloo says. 'We really had fun with it.'

Finishing touches included repainting the huge front doors beyond a pair of koi ponds in a peach melba hue. 'We wanted to go with something not as expected for Palm Springs,' said Ayromloo. 'This colour echoes the koi fish without matching too perfectly.'

The sculptural door handles that resemble Georg Jensen vessels were thought to be original to the home, but when they were removed to be repolished, Ayromloo discovered that they were in fact from a 1990s Ikea designer collaboration. 'That was a really unexpected surprise that really threw us all,' she says.

Now glistening anew, these pulls and a pair of custom vertical lights on either side of the entrance subtly hint at the exuberant sci-fi fantasy that visitors can expect to encounter inside.

With the arrival of autumn, our thoughts can finally turn to more agreeable prospects: ski season. A snowy Courchevel sounds particularly enticing to those who were never made for the heat. If you're anticipating the layers-worthy weather, here's a little escapism: a new luxury ski residence designed by London studio Spinocchia Freund, the Alpine Chalet in Courchevel.

Developed under the eye of founder and creative director Brigitta Spinocchia Freund, the private residence lies in Courchevel village, embodying the resort's alluring blend of convenience and exclusivity, with ski-in, ski-out access alongside proximity to designer boutiques and Michelin-starred restaurants.

Spanning a dizzying 30,000 sq ft, the chalet exists somewhere between a private home and a five-star hotel. Views are, of course, paramount: the residence occupies an impressive mountainside position looking out across snow-covered forests and surrounding alpine peaks.

Inside, the challenge was to balance scale with warmth, one that Spinocchia Freund strikes through the richness of timber, the earthiness of stone and an abundance of woven details. These are design languages frequently drawn upon in alpine interiors, with wood and stone echoing the mountains beyond. But here, refined detailing elevates proceedings from rustic to elegant.

The layout is zoned between communal areas and private retreats. Chief among the latter is the principal suite, conceived as a private apartment within the chalet, complete with bespoke joinery, handcrafted furnishings and generous dressing rooms. Ten further bedrooms each have their own identity, with bespoke linens and individual vignettes framing the surroundings. This thoughtful lack of uniformity reinforces the sense that this is a private home first and a ‘hotel’ second.

Entertainment and relaxation sit at the heart of the Alpine Chalet experience. A vast dining table anchors the home, a natural gathering point for hearty meals; the stylish bar is made for après-ski drinks; and fireplaces warm several lounges, perfect for unwinding after a day on the slopes. And that's only the beginning – the lower ground floor is devoted entirely to leisure, with a traditional bowling alley, a cinema and a games room complete with vintage arcade machines, alongside wellness facilities including a swimming pool, spa and treatment rooms.

For anyone dreaming of the mountains, it's hard to imagine a more persuasive vision of ski season.

When it comes to interiors, Westwing has plenty to offer. As the year draws to a close, the brand’s take on the advent calendar turns the countdown to Christmas into a celebration of design, with a curation of surprises combining pieces from its own collection with an edit of finds from premium partner brands.

It comes in an oversized red-and-white house-shaped box elegantly illustrated by Kera Till, a Munich-based artist whose whimsical motifs have featured on previous collaborations with Westwing. Behind each of the 24 doors is a design-worthy surprise, spanning home decor, tableware and self-care essentials, to be enjoyed during the festive season and beyond.

What's inside the Westwing advent calendar

The collection brings together some of Westwing’s most coveted brands, including Aesop, Audo Copenhagen, Ferm Living, Vinga, DBKD, Philippi, Vondels, WMF, Archivist and Broste. Several pieces have been specially customised for the calendar and aren’t available for individual purchase, adding an exclusive touch to the experience.

Beautiful yet functional, objects have been chosen to inspire elegant spaces and elevate the everyday, reflecting Westwing’s focus on craftsmanship, considered design and timeless appeal. Without giving too much away, last year’s sold-out edition featured a scented candle by Meraki, place card holders by Georg Jensen, and a wood plaid from Westwing's Collection – alongside linen napkins, champagne coupes, Christmas stockings and other festive accessories.

This launch comes at an exciting moment for the company: following its online UK debut earlier this year, Westwing opened its first flagship store in Germany in September, marking another step in its growing presence in the world of home and lifestyle.

As the brand continues to expand its offering for design-conscious consumers across Europe, the calendar captures its vision for shaping trends and taste. Conceived to be gifted or enjoyed as a daily discovery, it is a considered way to round off the year in style.

Like the familiarity of your morning jogging route, running-store design sticks to a well-trodden path: a wall of shoes, a jumble of fuel belts and caffeinated goops, and that distinct, fresh-out-of-the-box aroma of synthetic fabrics.

As running has experienced a post-pandemic explosion, though, the culture – and the style– has swiftly evolved. Leading the pack is Paris-based label Satisfy, a running brand known for its routinely sold-out technical apparel as much as its viral marketing activations (say, a mosh pit in the Arizona desert).

This month, Satisfy opened the doors to its first-ever brick-and-mortar storefront in Paris’ historic Marais district. Rather than cashing in on thousands of $140 moth-eaten T-shirts, however, this boutique is selling something else: ‘It’s not really a Satisfy store. It’s Satisfy as a store,’ founder Brice Partouche wrote on Instagram.

To distill Satisfy’s ethos – one driven by performance, design innovation and a winking sense of humour – into an IRL location, Partouche hired Ciguë, a multidisciplinary architecture and design office located just outside of Paris. The firm, founded by three friends in 2003, is known for its innovative takes on tried-and-true typologies, ranging from hotels (see: Ace’s new Athens location) to factories.

‘Satisfy is one of the few brands where we were like, “We should call them,’” Ciguë co-founder Alphonse Sarthout recalls. ‘But Brice called us first.’

Satisfy’s Paris footprint occupies two storefronts on opposite sides of Rue de Saintonge – Supply, which hosts the boutique, and Fuel Station, a pint-sized coffee shop that concocts caffeinated pre- and post-run beverages. ‘The brand has been online for 11 years, and it sells super well, so the main target of the store was not to sell more – it was to sell differently and finally meet the people,’ Sarthout says.

The main store, Satisfy Supply, feels more like an art gallery than a running store. That’s because it’s mostly bare, save for a wall-spanning triptych of the American West by painter Othelo Gervacio. The mural – which depicts rugged buttes and a mustang horse – comes directly from Satisfy’s brand lore, which draws heavily from desert terrain and the kitsch that can accompany it (fringe is a common feature on Satisfy apparel, as are bald eagles). It also serves as Ciguë’s boldest design move: ‘We had the idea of a diorama, like in a museum,’ Sarthout explains.

Against this western backdrop, the designers kept displays to a minimum. Clothing hangs off of suspended stainless steel rods or gridded display racks; shoes are displayed on sculptural wood plinths; and T-shirts are splayed out on custom cast-Zamak alloy slabs, hovering just inches off the ground. ‘So many brands would be like, oh, you kill the strength of the product. How can I buy a $200 T-shirt when it's lying on the floor?’ Sarthout says. ‘But [for us] it's very interesting because it slows down the rhythm of the space – you almost feel like sitting, and bending down to touch the products.’

There are other retail unorthodoxies. For instance, there is a conspicuous absence of explanatory text touting the technical qualities of shoes and clothing; the choice encourages customers to ask questions of sales associates, who underwent months of product knowledge training. ‘It brings back the importance of hosting and the team working there,’ Sarthout says. The same thought went into the changing rooms, which are clad in knotty timber (not unlike an old school diner you might stumble into on Route 66) and feature linen curtains. The store even features a custom scent. ‘It makes you feel like you’re in a luxury fashion store and not in a running store,’ the designer adds.

Satisfy Fuel Station, the coffee bar, has a similarly minimal feel, akin to American gas stations and hardware stores. The idea is for runners and shoppers alike to achieve the coveted endorphin-driven ‘runner’s high’ with hydrating, energising or carb-rich concoctions (the menu is helpfully organised into ‘pre-high’ and ‘post-high’ categories). The western imagery continues on the shiny espresso machine. ‘Here you can just come in, get a drink, and not necessarily buy something [at the store], so it becomes a gathering space,’ Sarthout says. Already, the Fuel Station has become the de facto meeting point for Satisfy’s regular ‘LSD’ club runs – runners'-speak for ‘Long Slow Distances.’

Judging by the queues that regularly form outside the shop, it’s likely that there are more Satisfy locations in store (a spokesperson said the brand is currently exploring opportunities for expansion). And even if Satisfy’s vibe (or price tag) isn’t aligned with your personal running aesthetic, the label is demonstrating a principle that other athletic brands would be wise to note: create community or eat dust.

In west London, housed in a historic 1910 building, designer Rose Uniacke’s latest project unfolds. She worked closely with her client, a collector with an eye for art, who wanted to improve the apartment conversion and create a comfortable London base for him and his family.

The 3,111 sq ft space offered more than a design project, as Uniacke – who has previously shown Wallpaper* around her own London home – leaned into the building’s architectural context, encompassing bespoke joinery and lighting design. ‘While the interior is now fairly contemporary, with minimal detailing, the original architecture retains a strong presence, particularly through the bold arched windows that frame beautiful, expansive views,' Uniacke tells Wallpaper*. She sourced rare midcentury works by Jean Prouvé, Charlotte Perriand and Jean Dunand, and paired these with contemporary elements.

Uniacke stresses that it was important for the home not to feel like a gallery. ‘I wanted the spaces to feel considered and layered. The room should always come first, with the beautiful things within it coming second. The overall feeling needed to be comfortable, welcoming and light, with a sense of ease.’

Artworks from the client's collection were chosen to anchor colour and mood, and Uniacke added furniture and objects of equal standing, inspired by the initial conversations she had with her client. ‘It led me towards collectible French furniture of the 20th century and pieces from contemporary Japan, alongside my own designs from the Rose Uniacke Editions range, and I wanted to include some pieces from antiquity. As always, the pieces led the design.’

Uniacke explains that fabrics and paints are always in response to light, objects and furniture. For this project, the palette shifts from white and pale blue-green through to soft pink and dark red. Fabrics are used on the bedroom walls, adding a sense of softness.

‘I like the way there is often a lightness to 20th-century design that worked particularly well in this apartment, alongside the large windows and open views. The Jean Prouvé bookcase in the main sitting room was an important starting point,' she notes. 'It was made in 1930 as a special commission and is an important and unique piece, complete with its original paint. It was the right scale, the perfect colour, and had an interesting feeling of airiness that felt completely at home next to the windows. It became an anchor for the room and, in many ways, the driver for everything around it.'

The rest of the room features treasures such as an Egyptian carved tablet from 332–30 BC, depicting Ptolemy III and retaining traces of its striking original paint, a ceramic Pyramide by Jacques and Dani Ruelland from 1980, and a Jean Prouvé wall light from 1950. ‘I like these kinds of echoes and conversations between pieces, particularly when they cross periods and cultures. The overall feeling is one of elegant informality and ease.’

Although the home is full of collectible pieces, it is important for the space to feel comfortable and welcoming – even if there are significant art pieces, the atmosphere doesn't feel too precious. However, in a world full of visual noise, how does one know when a room is done? For Uniacke, the answer is simple: ‘I don’t think a room is ever done, is it? It might achieve a certain balance that makes it ready to be lived in, but rooms are always going to evolve. In this case, being the home of a collector, things come into the collection and move around. Rooms change over time with the people who live in them. I’m excited by rooms that continue to evolve; it’s part of the fun.’

roseuniacke.com

Midcentury Italian lighting design spans as many genres as one can imagine, with a range of creative expressions that expand on the functional mission of lighting design. From the overly decorative to the sci-fi inspired, from the sculptural to the purely industrial, Italian lighting design has shaped the history of domestic objects in an impactful, long-lasting way.

The work of Venetian lighting designer Carlo Nason sits at the more abstract, experimental end of this spectrum. A Murano glass expert that operated at the cusp of art and design, his work explored the sculptural creative possibilities of glass.

'Carlo Nason grew up with an extraordinary knowledge of Murano glassmaking, but he was not defined by its traditions,' says Marie Kristine Schmidt, CEO of Danish design company Gubi. This month, the Scandinavian company adds Nason to their ever-growing portfolio of design reissues, with a collaboration that brings back the designer's ‘LT305’ lamp, now re-named the ‘Lotus’ lamp after the evocative nickname used by collectors.

One thing Schmidt admired in Nason's work was his independence. 'He looked beyond Murano to industrial design in Milan, Northern European modernism, photography, and the world around him, and brought those influences into his work,' she told Wallpaper*. 'There is an intelligence and practicality to his designs that I find very compelling. He thought about how a lamp was made, assembled, cleaned, and used, without compromising the beauty of the object. Nothing feels unnecessary.'

Nason died in May 2026, so the timing of the launch, which was developed in close collaboration with the designer and his son Alberto Nason, feels momentous. 'It gives us the opportunity to celebrate his work and bring renewed attention to a designer with a very independent and original point of view,' adds Schmidt.

Carlo Nason's ‘Lotus’ lamp reissued by Gubi

The ‘Lotus’ lamp was originally created in 1969, and embodies Nason's curiosity and prowess with glass. Through his work, he was instrumental in putting Murano on the global design map and among his most creative glass experiments are lighting objects that push the boundaries of the material with explosive forms that appear futuristic and are technically challenging.

The ‘Lotus’ lamp is a fitting example: only produced for a few years after its creation, it was originally part of Nason's exploration of multi-layered glass compositions within an object (a recurring theme of his vast oeuvre).

'The “Lotus” looks simple, but making it is incredibly demanding,' notes Schmidt, describing the intricate manufacturing process behind the piece. 'Each of the four glass shades is mouth-blown individually, and they have to fit together with great precision. Inside, a compact steel structure carries the weight of the glass, keeps exactly the right distance between each layer, and hides the light source.

Then you have the pulegoso glass, with thousands of tiny bubbles and natural variations created during the making. So there is a very precise construction, but you can still see the hand of the maker. No two lamps are completely identical. That balance between precision, craftsmanship, and individuality is what makes the “Lotus” so special.'

The lamp joins a collection that includes archival designs from some of modern history's most celebrated voices, from Gabriella Crespi to Pierre Paulin, as well as regular contemporary commissions to the likes of Gam Fratesi and Space Copenhagen. It is an interesting approach for a Scandinavian design brand, to expand its portfolio beyond its geographical confines and playing an integral part in the preservation of some of the past century's most important creative moments.

'For Gubi, being historically important is not enough reason to bring a design back. It has to be relevant today,' explains Schmidt. 'We have to believe that people will want to live with it now, not simply admire it because of its history. The “Lotus” is a good example. Carlo Nason designed it more than 50 years ago, but the way he thought about lighting feels very relevant today. Bringing back the Lotus is also about telling Nason's story and introducing his work to a new audience. That is an important part of Gubi's role when we reintroduce historical design.'

gubi.com

With their steel profiles, flush cabinetry and marble tops, the low-profile credenzas and elegant desks designed by Florence Knoll in 1961 revolutionised office design, consigning traditional clunky filing cabinets and heavy bureaux to the past. Sixty-five years later, a new collection by Sam Chermayeff for Knoll allows these classics out of the executive suite and into the home, where they have increasingly been put to use over the last decades.

‘If Florence Knoll was still around, she would’ve responded to the current climate by reshaping her own system to fit domestic needs. Back then, people didn’t put their socks in a Florence Knoll credenza, but she would’ve been like, “of course people do that now”,’ says Chermayeff, whose new ‘Knoll Chermayeff Storage’ collection includes a bookcase, bar cabinet, console, side table and coffee table.

Florence Knoll’s ‘2544’ credenza was inspired by her former mentor Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s minimalist principles, and Chermayeff has taken a similarly architectural approach to his debut collection for Knoll, pairing bold precision with various finishes that allow for personalisation.

The American-born, Berlin-based architect has a strong personal connection to Knoll: his father, Ivan Chermayeff, led Knoll’s rebranding and graphic standards in the early 1990s with Tom Geismar (and also designed the MoMA logo). ‘In my memory, there was a Florence Knoll credenza in my father’s office,’ he says. ‘I remember Massimo and Lella Vignelli also had one in their office/house. In both cases, I remember red things on top of them and flowers. My son will probably remember the toys in the new ones that we have.’

Chermayeff knew that a light touch was all that was needed to adapt Florence Knoll’s original modernist designs to our more flexible contemporary world. From the tall open shelving to the console tables with push-to-open drawers, each piece clearly belongs to the Florence Knoll lineage – an evolution, not a revolution. All are fully finished on all sides, with particular attention spent on their silhouettes, so the pieces are free to float and take centre stage in the room.

There are plenty of colours and finishes to choose from: the side table, for example, is available in five types of veneers, ranging from Ebonized ash to Oxford walnut, as well as deep red, green, and blue lacquers – plus seven different types of marble (either gloss- or satin-coated) for the tabletop. The bookcase is also available with clear class shelves, while the bar, which features a mirrored top half with glass rack, is particularly striking in Dark Red Ultra.

‘‎Florence Knoll was a genius in how she used materials,’ says Chermayeff. ‘I like to follow her way, and I think it's best when the top is lighter and the body is darker – but not too dark. In my mind, the most classic combination is chrome, maple veneer, and white marble. You get that feeling with many of the colours and light tops. But then there’s black stone, which really has something and is lovely to live with.

‘I love this system for being able to withstand a lot of different expressions,’ he continues. ‘It’s generous in that way, and even though I took it on a little walk, it’s still Florence’s thing.’

The ‘Knoll Chermayeff Storage’ collection will be available in the UK and EU in November 2026.

New York has no shortage of venues to view great 20th- and 21st-century design – the Cooper Hewitt, the Brooklyn Museum, the Met and the Museum of Arts and Design, to name just a few.

Less common, though, are places to view rarities, prototypes and other design B-sides in an archive-like atmosphere, outside the constraints of an exhibition thesis or a permanent collection. The co-founders of R & Company – one of America’s most esteemed collectible design galleries – are looking to change that by opening their long-time storage facility Building 86 to the public for the first time.

The 16,000 sq ft warehouse, located in a former machine shop in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, housed the gallery’s permanent collection, designer archives, photo studio and administrative spaces for the better part of a decade. But co-founders Zesty Meyers and Evan Snyderman recognised an opportunity: ‘The idea of being able to share 30 years of collecting with our clientele seemed like a really great idea,’ says Snyderman. ‘Everything in this building has a story.’

Building 86 will be open, by appointment, to collectors, designers and the public alike. Items are displayed on towering shelves, in no particular order, allowing visitors to wander and discover. Here, you may bump into a work by a modernist titan. There, you may encounter a contemporary designer you’ve never heard of. It’s all meant to foster a sense of serendipity and discovery. ‘We have things from France, we have things from Denmark. We have things we’ve owned, collected, wanted, lived with, cherished, loved, found – you name it,’ says Meyers.

‘A bigger thing,’ he adds, ‘is we just get to have fun.’

Below, Snyderman and Meyers share their 10 favourite finds.

1. 'Sluggo' lamp by Wendell Castle

This is one of my favourite things of all time. Most people know Wendell for his work in wood. I sort of brought him out of retirement in a way about 25 years ago when he didn't have a gallery representing him. One of the things I found most interesting was this series of work that he created in the late ‘60s to early ‘70s. It was a very short period of time, about four years, that he took a break from working in wood and switched to working in fibreglass because he was inspired by what was happening with the Italian Radical Design movement through a show at MoMA called The New Domestic Landscape. He got tired, from what he told me, of ‘everything being brown.’ He wanted colour. Wendell also comes out of hot rod culture – he built racing muscle cars and things like that. He was always a car fanatic. This lamp is sparkly blue – It's like that hot rod color. He was also looking a the cartoons of the 1940s, like Sluggo from the Nancy comic strip. That has nothing to do with the shape of this. It's just like this odd, surrealist object, and it looks like a slug. It sits on the floor. It's a lamp, which only illuminates this little strip of clear plexiglass at the bottom, so it really doesn't function as a lamp – it just glows. The whole thing is absurd, and that's what I love about it. – Evan Snyderman

2. Modular cat toy by Verner Panton for Naef

[This cat] was produced by Naef, a great Swiss toy maker. But the thing is, you have to build and put it together by interlocking these six-sided cubes with these plastic clips, and it's really, really hard. So it failed as a product; it was supposed to be marketed to kids and the adults couldn't even put it together – it takes hours, and they're very fragile. It's harder than Lego, and so in a couple of years they stopped producing them. We have original boxes. We have original instructions. Obviously, if you can make the cat, you can make another shape. They came in different colours. Evan and I have been buying them for years, and we keep buying them if we find them – they’re that rare. We have sold them too and we've tried to buy them back. We have clients that bought them from us even in the '90s, and we've tried to buy back, and they won't sell them to us. No one wants to get rid of the good Verner Panton. – Zesty Meyers

3. 'African' Chair by Garry Knox Bennett

This chair is wild, and he was wild. Garry Knox Bennett was one of the early American studio furniture makers. He's a contemporary of Wendell Castle. He lived in Oakland, California. Coming out of school, he made very elaborate roach clips, like in the ‘60s, and jewellery. What he was selling became popular, and that's when he went into the furniture-making world. You can't see it in the photo, but there are these silver hand-hammered little nails that are on top of the seat. So it's very much like a combination of furniture and jewellery. A lot of his work has this kind of detail, this level of like very fine metalwork combined with eccentric, wild woodwork. He was quite a character. Most people don't know who he is, but I just find it really exciting. This is my own personal chair. I used it in my office for many, many years, but I just retired it because I didn't want to destroy it. – ES

4. Flat file by Poul Kjaerholm

Paul Kjaerholm mostly worked in Denmark, that was the country of wood carving, and he was a teacher at the Royal Academy. I don't know if he coined the term, but he called himself an interior architect. I've never seen a flat file executed by Danish cabinet makers. And the handles are so beautiful, and everyone that's ever bought them from us are only art collectors. And it makes so much sense. The handles are pine. Danish cabinet makers were able to do this. – ZM

5. 'Paramount' lamp by Lapo Binazzi

Lapo Binazzi is my favourite of the Italian Radical designers. He's the coolest person. He lives in Florence. He's 85 or so years-old now. He started Grupo UFO and was one of the most radical of the Radical designers. He did this series of lamps between 1972 and 1973. They were statements about Hollywood movie companies and the American dream. This one is about Paramount, with the mountain from the Paramount logo. This is part of our permanent collection. The base is ceramic, handmade by him, and then the umbrella is custom-made by an umbrella maker in Florence. He works with all these old artisans and people in the neighbourhood. These craftsmen are going away – like the handmade umbrella, this kind of thing doesn't really exist anymore. As pop-y and and funny as they are, Lapo’s lamps are also completely crafted. – ES

6. Model 4088 table lamp by Joe Colombo for Kartell

The top part of this lamp turns. This is a lamp in my own personal collection, but I've never had in one of my houses – it's just been in a box. There's a second version of that lamp that's much shorter, that was more heavily produced. I've only ever seen a couple of [this model] in my lifetime, so I bought it. I'm a giant fan of Joe Colombo. I'm a giant fan of the late '60s into the '70s and that sort of pop era. I love that he was that far ahead of his time, and it's great that we can put it in a vignette. – ZM

7. 'Codependent' light fixture by Katie Stout

This is Katie Stout at her best. This has individual shades. She mixes these forms together and calls them 'codependent', but it's only something she can create and think of in this way. It’s just stunning. The colours and the innocence of it– it looks like a little kid’s thing, it’s absolutely amazing. – ZM

8. 'Elephant Skin' candelabra by The Haas Brothers

This is a very early Haas Brothers work. We were their first gallery. And it’s huge. I mean, it stands probably three feet tall – it's almost Gothic in scale. This piece was made in 2013, around when we first started to work with them. They made a series of these large candle holders in bronze. It's sculpted out of clay and then cast into bronze. Each one is made in an edition of three. We sold all of them almost immediately. We acquired this one back from a client a couple years ago. It has the most beautiful patina on it. In fact, Niki Haas was here a couple of years ago and saw it. He was like, ‘Oh my God, we need to make these again. This is the coolest thing ever.’ They call them ‘elephant skin’ because they have this really interesting texture. They look like folded skin almost, like, soft and squishy looking, but they're obviously cast bronze. It's just beautiful. – ES

9. Five-piece sectional sofa by Roberto Matta

Roberto Sebastian Matta was a surrealist painter from Chile, and this is one of the few furniture pieces he ever made. He lived in Chile and then Italy for many years, and he worked with Gavina, which is the company that produced this. Eventually, Gavina was sold to Knoll, so that's why the Knoll factory then produced these.

I love how it creates this whole living environment; it's a sculpture, but then it transforms into a sofa. But then you can turn it into, like, a fort. You can turn it into a whole room. You can make multiple installations out of it. I love the playfulness of it, and the fact that it's really a work of art masquerading as a sofa. This particular one, I bought from a woman who inherited it from her parents, and it had sat in her Upper East Side New York apartment since the 1970s. – ES

10. Bed by Joaquim Tenreiro

This is a single bed, I mean, you could use it as a day bed. If you notice on the front end where the footboard is, it tapers up, and the the headboard tapers up to to this beautiful sliver of wood. It has caning in the headboard, and it just shows Tenreiro's craftsmanship. It's something that we've never seen before. We've had one bigger one that was more of a full or queen-size bed. But he is, by far, the best wood carver in the history of Brazil. We own part of his archive. I'm a huge fan. He was born in Portugal and immigrated to Brazil. I think he's one of the best from the 1940s to about 1970s. – ZM

Guzema's first boutique in New York mirrors its fine jewellery: minimal yet far from ordinary.

Inside the SoHo shop, guests can gradually discover elegant, everyday pieces from the Ukrainian brand, founded by jewellery designer Valeriya Guzema, against a soft-yet-sculptural backdrop.

‘The jewellery is not simply shown to you,’ Ukrainian architect, interior designer and artist Victoria Yakusha tells Wallpaper*. ‘You have to come closer and look.’

Before entering the boutique, a window installation lures passersby with a white, sunflower-inspired lamp by Yakusha’s Faina collection. Nearby, custom, rounded sculptures mimic the lamp and showcase oversized models of the brand’s jewellery — which is handcrafted in 18k gold and set with responsibly sourced natural diamonds. ‘I like to bring something artistic into a space, something that makes you stop for a moment and pulls you in,’ Yakusha says.

Limited by the existing long, narrow space with nearly no natural light, Yakusha leaned into fluidity by creating connected jewellery displays with integrated lighting that become part of the architecture. In central oval cases and on grey cones in glass boxes, the accessories rest as if the displays materialised around them. Mirrors on the walls, essential for trying on jewellery, also enhance the unified look.

‘What surrounds an object is as important as the object itself. It is what allows you to see it,’ says Yakusha. ‘There are many surfaces, but you don’t see them as separate elements. They almost disappear, and the jewellery becomes the focus.’

Everything, from the walls to the ceiling, is finished in microcement in grey and warm beige tones, giving all surfaces a cohesive, velvety appearance. ‘The depth comes through texture rather than colour contrast,’ adds Yakusha.

Beyond the main area, visitors can indulge in complimentary private appointments. These sessions are held in an intimate continuation of the boutique, tucked behind a glass block wall and outfitted with a Faina sofa and ottoman that melt into the surroundings. There, stylists in slate grey uniforms — created by Safiyaa to echo the curved interiors — assist jewellery seekers in finding the right piece for them.

Along with the brand’s enduring designs and custom engraving service, the boutique offers an exclusive jewellery collection only available at the SoHo store that reinterprets Guzema's signature styles.

‘Jewellery is very personal, so the space has to do more than display it,’ says Yakusha. ‘It gives you time to slow down and find the piece that feels entirely your own.’

GUZEMA is located at 112 Wooster St, New York, NY 10012

Jeremy and Cath Brown founded Feldspar, the Devon-based design studio, to create pieces they needed for their own home. Working from their workshop, a 500-year-old cider farm, they focus on creating items of longevity in the form of dainty bone china tableware, elegant homewares, Feldspar's first furniture collection (which debuted in 2025 at London Design Festival), lambswool blankets, and more. Now, they have translated their simple, cosy, and playful dimpled aesthetic into a new lighting collection.

Discover Feldspar's first lighting collection

‘We always wanted to be able to create anything we needed for our home, and so we've been experimenting with larger-scale items for years now – last year's furniture collection included the very biggest things we can physically fit into our kilns, [such as] the “Merrivale” side-table base. With the pendants, the main challenge was to find the balance between casting them finely to ensure the light glowed through, and ensuring they are still structurally strong,’ Cath Brown tells Wallpaper*.

The collection comprises a series of four new pendants and two table lamps. What the founders loved about the fine bone china is that it seems white and opaque by day, but takes on a warming, paper-lantern glow during the evening.

The table lamps, the larger ‘Merrivale’ and smaller ‘Burra’, have a base made from fine bone china – thicker than the pendants for a sturdier result – with all made at Feldspar’s Devon studio. The table lamps’ shades come in pale-blue and grey linen, and are handmade by designer Eloise Scotland, based in Bath. Here, she uses traditional hand-stitching techniques. Clean lines are used for the construction, which means there are no requirements for any trim or tape around the edges.

Brown says, ‘The lampshades we designed with Eloise were inspired by the shape of a bowl of her Grandpa's, an avid ceramics collector, and each has a hidden cobalt-blue rib inside, a nod to the cobalt blue we use on our ceramics. The finishing touch is a hand-carved brass dimmer switch, tactile and unexpected.’

The pieces are elegant, but not serious, an important combination for creating a space that feels tasteful, yet lived in. ‘We took inspiration from the rooms in our home and were inspired by shapes we like from our existing collections,’ shares Brown. ‘Our kitchen has a high ceiling, so we wanted a taller pendant to sit within the space there.’ The result was ‘Big Slim’, a tall and elegant pendant to hang above a table. Another pendant in the series, meanwhile, ‘Big Bell’, has a shade that references the ‘Merrivale’ table and lamp base, ‘echoing the curves of that graceful bell shape’.

Feldspar is named after the abundant mineral found in granite that gives ceramics their strength. And strong they are, as the studio is all about designing everyday functional items that are also intended to be treasured – influenced by the longevity of pieces previous generations used to own. Brown concludes, ‘Our new range is what we call the 'staples' – classic pendants and lamps in a collection of different sizes, for all eventualities. We wanted to create truly bespoke and unique objects; each is beautifully hand-crafted.'

feldspar.studio

London Design Festival is back for another year, spotlighting the very best of design across the city. Emerging designers and independent studios present an array of pieces; some look to new and ingenious ways to create, while others focus on fine-tuning a craft rather than reinventing the wheel. What we're looking for is a blend of ingenuity, functionality, and, of course, beauty. With this in mind, each year we dissect how design is applied to lighting – and what we are seeing so far is an ode to the portable light. With that being said, here are seven designs that we are looking forward to seeing illuminate the festival.

LIGHTING DESIGN AT LONDON DESIGN FESTIVAL 2026

Bocci x Bethan Laura Wood

Bocci is known for its orb-shaped lighting designs. In tandem with London Design Festival, the Canadian lighting brand is unveiling a new purple colourway of its 14p design. The glass ball-shaped light fits in the palm of your hand and is easily portable. What we are looking forward to seeing is how it slots into Bethan Laura Woods' installation, specifically designed for the occasion. Inspired by the movie Labyrinth, starring David Bowie, the designer playfully dubbed the light the 'Bowie Ball,' which later became the foundation for her sculptural installation. Expect to see maze-like architecture that unites colour and structure – formed from colourful totems that glow with the arrangements of the purple 14p.

The Bocci x Bethan Laura Wood installation is located at 15 Bateman Street, London, W1D 4AQ between 12 - 20 September, 2026

Lee Broom's 'The Chant Chambers'

Last year we saw Lee Broom’s original piece ‘Beacon’ light up the South Bank. This year, the British designer has decided to create a continuation of his portable ‘Chant’ light – welcoming you into the ‘Chant Chambers’. The collection will now include oversized chandelier compositions, sculptural wall lights, linear pendants and architectural lighting structures. Says Broom, ‘I’ve always loved lighting that can really inhabit a space, rather than simply sit within it, and that became the starting point for expanding the collection.’

The cubic design is easily stacked and placed together, allowing it to effortlessly flow through a room and intertwine within the interior, sitting at the intersection between architecture and decor. Presented in a new smoked glass finish, the darker tones echo a 1970s interior.

The full installation will be on view to the public during London Design Festival, 15–20 September 2026, at Lee Broom, 91, 93 and 95 Rivington Street, Shoreditch, London, EC2A 3AY

Faye Toogood

Faye Toogood presents Johnny. If you are familiar with British slang, you may note it is another name for a condom. The series of crumpled paper lanterns reminded the studio of just that, as Toogood explains, ‘During the design process, the studio was full of paper experiments. Stitched forms draped over tables and chairs that with a quick crumple and tug became standing oversize paper totems. We started to call the human height models “Johnny” as something of a joke – as they really did remind us of gigantic condoms.’ There is the ‘Johnny’, the largest of the lights which stands tall, yet crumpled, the Johnny pendant, and table light ( in two different sizes), are more compact, and squashed. The playfully phallic-looking lanterns bounce light and shadow. Switched on, the designs are delicate and show off the dainty stitching and its wrought iron skeleton.

Faye Toogood, 48a Union Street, SE1 1TD

Tom Dixon

Located in the Tom Dixon Coal Drops Yard flagship, the brand's presentation is titled ‘Have you seen the light?’. Visitors will see the brand’s latest collection in full, while also offering an early look at future launches. Nestled under each arch of the space will be the Flare, Melt Nickel, and Whirl copper lights (pictured above), alongside the Smash and Spot tables.

Upcoming releases include the Groove furniture collection in a glossy black finish, an armchair addition to the Plump series, a small outdoor-rated Melt light, and Pose task and portable lights in bronze. The display also includes new textiles, candles, and decorative vases.

Located at Tom Dixon, Coal Drops Yard, 4-10 Bagley Walk, London N1C 4DH

Studio Waldemeyer

Also focusing on smaller lighting is the London-based design practice Studio Waldemeyer, which will present its ‘Lumeable’ rechargeable candle lights. . Each rechargeable candle is housed in a hand-formed glass vessel, with a patented electronic flame, bespoke to the studio. The candles have different brightness levels, replaceable batteries, and are easy to repair.

The collection is showcased through an installation at the church St Stephen Walbrook on 15 September 2026. Creating a warm atmosphere to accompany a charity concert, the installation will raise funds for the care and maintenance of the church, and will surround the altar. Each rechargeable candle is housed in a hand-formed glass vessel, with a patented electronic flame, bespoke to the studio. The candles have different brightness levels, replaceable batteries, and are easy to repair.

The Lumeable Candlelit Charity Concert, with the Square Milestones jazz band, will take place at St Stephen Walbrook, 39 Walbrook, EC4N 8BN, on Tuesday 15 September 2026. The concert is free to attend; no booking or tickets required

Made x Barbican

At the end of summer, furniture company Made unveiled its collaboration with brutalist landmark, Barbican. The 23 piece collection was designed to bring home a slice of the building’s raw concrete aesthetics. It also found inspiration inspiration not only in the estate’s public spaces – such as the concert hall and raised walkways – but also in some of its original apartments.

The ‘Curve’ lamp series, nodded to the Concert Hall’s tubular acoustic panels. The ‘Coffer’ series of ceiling lights and wall lights drew from the pick-hammered textured concrete and the rounded shape found in the building’s ‘waffle’ ceilings – a concrete-saving structural grid that also creates a great pattern in the Barbican’s indoor and outdoor spaces. To see the collection in full head to a free immersive installation at the Barbican Centre located at the Barbican Level G Hub Space.

Read more about the Made x Barbican collection here

Raw Edges design studio

Yael Mer and Shay Alkalay of Raw-Edges first launched LightMass^, a collection of lights, two years ago at London Design Festival. Now they add to the collection with the new LightMass^ Table Lamp series. Here, the designs take a sculptural form, with each piece crafted from a single material to help minimise waste. As a result, the table lamps have an airy, weightless quality, with each design named after its individual mass and weight. They are dainty, delicate and offer a slight phytoid quality, with curved petal-like shapes.

Raw-Edges' LightMass^ Table Lamp series will take over the third floor of the Shoreditch Wax Building , 4 Garden Walk, London EC2A 3EQ, from 15 –20 September 2026

Paris Design Week runs from 10-19 September 2026, and to mark the occasion Garnier & Linker is branching into outdoor lighting for the very first time.

The French lighting brand’s new collection, ‘Aurora’, is built on a simple premise: rather than inventing a new design language for outdoor use, it extends Garnier & Linker's existing universe – one that founders Guillaume Garnier and Florent Linker say draws from ‘the decorative arts and contemporary sculpture’.

‘Through the various – often technical – research projects we conducted to develop this outdoor collection, we thought it would be interesting to adapt some of our current models. To bring the indoors outdoors, so to speak,’ they elaborate.

'Aurora' reinterprets existing designs – including ‘Nezu’, ‘Kora’, ‘Teree’ and ‘Thea’ – through the introduction of a new material. Where the brand’s indoor pieces have tended towards bronze or plaster, ‘Aurora’ uses cast aluminium. ‘Beyond its qualities, which are well-suited to outdoor use, we also wanted to focus on its aesthetic appeal – which is both raw and refined,’ the founders explain.

Developed at Les Granges, the founders’ studio near the Forest of Fontainebleau just south-east of Paris, ‘Aurora’ still feels sculptural – a hallmark of the brand – but leans slightly more architectural and industrial.

The design process stayed true to the studio's usual hybrid method – ‘moving back and forth between the studio and the workshop, and between drawing and sculpting or modelling’ – but this time layered with demands specific to the outdoors, including electrical testing and the development of a proprietary, compact power source. Interestingly, the attention to materials, texture and process developed for outdoor durability has now found its way back indoors, too – ‘thus bringing us full circle’, say Garnier and Linker.

The pair describe ‘Aurora’, which, they tease, is only the first chapter of a larger outdoor lighting line, as a challenge to the codes of the category. ‘We feel that the conventions are set in stone, both in terms of form and the materials used, and that the design vocabulary is consequently limited,’ they say. The new collection explores ‘how the differences between interior and exterior can sometimes be challenged to achieve greater fluidity’.

UK housing estates and Brutalist tower blocks such as the Barbican and Trellick Tower have long divided opinion among onlookers – what is a modernist masterpiece to one person is an eyesore to another. But of course, for many whose opinions are not so often heard, they are simply a home – a backdrop to daily life. For Shawn Adams and his fellow members of POoR Collective (Power Out of Restriction), some of whom grew up on housing estates, these buildings are a source of inspiration – one the studio has channelled into a joyful new rug for British brand Floor Story.

Realised in two contrasting colourways of New Zealand wool, the flatwoven design, named 'Power', is informed by the rigorous geometry found in the plans and sections of London tower blocks. In the pattern, these vertical and horizontal elements are abstracted, hinting at the outline of a deck-access walkway or a circular column borrowed from the Barbican.

The goal, Adams says, was to translate these spatial, three-dimensional concepts into a two-dimensional medium while maintaining an optimistic aesthetic rather than creating an austere or literal architectural plan.

'It's about finding the beauty in something everyday that might ordinarily be overlooked,' says Adams, who, born and raised in south-west London, runs POoR Collective alongside Matt Harvey-Agyemang, Ben Spry, Akmaral Khassen and Larry Botchway. 'We asked, "If we were to take the stories of an estate and try and make it into a rug, what would that look like?"'

He likens the resulting designs to a palimpsest – a visual translation of the layered lives and histories of residents who live within architecture that is so frequently fetishised or derided, and who are often talked about but rarely listened to.

For POoR, which primarily works on architectural projects focused on community development and platforming young people, designing a rug was a new but natural extension of its spatial design practice. 'It’s kind of the same process in a way,' he says, 'whether it’s 2D or 3D. We sketched out ideas, gathered references and started creating and testing. I think all of us were quite aligned from the start.'

To bring the collection to life, POoR worked with Floor Story's head designer Gill Thorpe. 'I was drawn to POoR Collective's ethos of community, joy, wellbeing and their beautifully coloured graphic language,' says Thorpe. 'Power is a versatile and graphically structured flatweave, the only one in the wider collection that comes in two stock colourways. The pattern has been made with the intention of building onto the shapes instead of just scaling up or down, reflecting the inspiration of London's tower blocks.'

Made in Mirzapur, India, POoR's rugs are being showcased during London Design Festival alongside four other designs by four London-based creative practices: Coco Lom, House of Quinn, artist Lakwena Maciver and Les Keepers. Thorpe deliberately chose to work with local designers who had not designed rugs before. 'Each of the five designers has such different styles and ways of creating,' she told Wallpaper*. 'Paint, textiles, photography and mark-making were all brought into the world of rugs for the first time; it was both exciting and explorative.'

While the designers brought new energy and creativity, Thorpe provided the essential technical insights regarding material depth, weave textures and practical considerations like colour durability for high-traffic areas. The POoR team moved from hand sketches to digital drawings and finally to physical samples to understand how different fibres and colour movements would behave in person. The ability to see and touch the fibres in person, Adams says, was a vital part of the process. 'There are aspects like the movement of the weave that you can’t really capture in the same way in a drawing or on a computer screen – you have to see how it will look in person and in samples, and see how the textures will work.'

The rugs will be displayed next month at Floor Story's Shoreditch showroom, which will be transformed into a series of room sets featuring furniture from Spanish brand Sancal and curated by Trifle* Creative. The display will include all five designs – a fitting celebration of London's design talent.

For POoR Collective, the rug offers another medium through which to continue deeper conversations that have long informed its work. Housing estates are filled with overlooked design stories. Platforming them, POoR argues, is a way to challenge design hierarchies and invite marginalised voices to the table. 'With our work moving forward, we’re really looking at what power means,' says Adams. 'We want to talk about buildings, spaces and aspects of design that people don’t typically discuss. We want to shift the conversation.'

The rugs will be on display during London Design Festival, 15–18 September 2026, 10am–6pm daily; Saturday 19 September, 11am–5pm, at Floor Story, Cairo Studios, 4 Nile Street, London N1 7RF

British designer Lee Broom invites visitors into The Chant Chambers, a new installation for London Design Festival 2026. Last year we saw his original piece ‘Beacon’ light up the South Bank. This year sees a continuation of the designer’s portable lighting piece entitled ‘Chant’. The newly expanded collection includes oversized chandelier compositions, sculptural wall lights, linear pendants and architectural lighting structures.

Step inside The Chant Chambers by Lee Broom

Broom, who has been busy illuminating Madonna's Confessions II film , notes that some pieces feel complete as a single object, while others are collections that can evolve. ‘It’s often the ones based around very simple shapes that allow me to do that, and ‘Chant’ has that quality. It’s a very pure form, a glass cube with a circular indentation, so there’s a natural opportunity to play with repetition, scale, and different configurations. I’ve always loved lighting that can really inhabit a space, rather than simply sit within it, and that became the starting point for expanding the collection.’

The cubic design allows it to flow through a room and intertwine within the interior, sitting at the intersection between architecture and decor. The pieces feel atmospheric and sultry. Presented in a new smoked glass finish, the darker tones echo a 1970s interior.

‘I’m a modernist,’ exclaims Broom, ‘but I’ve always been drawn to nostalgia, particularly the late 1970s. There was something very distinctive about interiors from that period; they could be decorative, but they also had a real sculptural quality, and often a slightly more masculine sensibility than traditional interior decoration. I love the smoked glass, mirrors, and wall-to-wall carpeting.

‘They were strong design gestures that created a real atmosphere. I also like the lighting from that period too. It didn’t always take centre stage, but there would often be one strong sculptural chandelier, or lighting would be integrated throughout the interior in a much more architectural way.’

When designing ‘Chant ', Broom looked towards the glass block’s two historical references: when it first emerged during the Art Deco period, and then its re-emergence in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The collection draws on these moments, but filtered through a modernist lens.

Broom’s work has a distinctive sense of geometry, yet he doesn’t quite know why. ‘Even when I try to design something more organic or textural, there is usually some sense of symmetry, balance or geometry sitting within. I’m not a particularly mathematical person, but I do think I’m very drawn to order.

‘I suppose it also reflects the way I am generally. I like order, I like discipline, and I’m a perfectionist. So the geometry within the work probably comes quite naturally from that. It gives me a framework, and then within that framework I can start to play with material, proportion and light.’

For Broom’s expanded vision of ‘Chant’, how it makes you feel is just as important as how it functions. ‘I’ve always designed from quite an emotive place. Of course, form and function are fundamental, and that’s where the real challenges lie, but with the expanded Chant collection I wanted to create something that also brings a sense of nostalgia and playfulness, while still feeling very considered and conceptual.

'There’s something quite mesmerising about seeing these glass forms repeated across a ceiling or through a space. In multiples, they become almost hypnotic. So I hope people feel uplifted by it, a sense of joy, but also slightly transported, so that they stop for a moment and really experience the light rather than simply see it.’

The full installation will be on view to the public during London Design Festival, 15–20 September 2026, at Lee Broom, 91, 93 and 95 Rivington Street, Shoreditch, London, EC2A 3AY

‘Serene’ is a word you’d rarely use to describe Midtown Manhattan. But Sutton Place, a pint-size residential enclave perched above the East River, is about the closest you’ll get to a an escape from concrete jungle, with its stately prewar buildings and verdant pocket parks.

A Connecticut couple in search of a New York pied-à-terre were similarly drawn to the neighbourhood, and wound up purchasing a one-bedroom apartment in a handsome co-op designed by Emery Roth in 1938. ‘My family had an apartment for 25 years in a different Emery Roth building, and so a lot of the details in the common areas felt very familiar,’ the wife says.

Less familiar were the apartment’s interiors, which in addition to a quirky layout that included a sunken living room, featured heavy, late-1990s details like dark wood accents, crystal sconces and a dated marble bathroom. Still, the clients saw potential in the 850 sq ft unit’s graciously proportioned rooms and glimmers of Roth’s original details. ‘I thought we could do something great with it,’ the wife says.

Enter New York-based interior designer Lauren Carlucci, who started her eponymous studio in 2023 after spending years in the art world. ‘I started this project at my kitchen table,’ Carlucci says. While the designer has an affinity for exuberant pattern, the client wanted something more subdued: ‘Our home in Connecticut is very traditional Connecticut. There's a lot of wallpaper,’ she says. ‘For this, I wanted something that was different, something that was calm, clean, and restful – an oasis in the busy city.’

‘She wanted a Parisian jewel box,’ Carlucci adds, ‘so that’s exactly what we delivered.’

The designer started by stripping back the apartment’s non-original details and clarifying the floorplan. Closet space was sacrificed to enlarge the galley kitchen and the small bathroom. Gone went the ornate mouldings and a bulky wood bannister fencing in the sunken living room. ‘We demolished it all,’ Carlucci says.

During the design phase, Carlucci fell in love with the few original 1930s details that remained in the home – soft curves on the doorframes and ceiling mouldings. She designed to lean into these modernist influences in her scheme. ‘I really left these little breadcrumbs,’ Carlucci says of her historical influences, ‘a mix of art deco, streamline moderne, and maybe a little Bauhaus here and there.’

That starts as soon as you enter the apartment and are greeted by a set of green lacquered storage closets and a hexagonal mirror. Look closely, and you’ll spot a stepped, art deco motif in the cabinet hardware and the baseboards. A lively Jazz Age squiggle can be found in the border of the custom rug as well as the silhouette of a railing tracing a diminutive set of steps down to the living area.

Gone, of course, is the bannister, which made the sunken living room feel small and disconnected from the rest of the apartment. Now, the room almost vibrates thanks to cream coloured walls, and furnishings in rich burgundy and chocolate brown, and – the biggest surprise – a carpet in a zippy chartreuse silk.

A new fireplace surrounded by shelving that displays artworks and objects from the clients’ personal collection creates a restful focal point. No surprise, the profile of the new mantel matches the profile of the doors and mouldings. ‘There’s a story being told,’ Carlucci says.

Back up the mini set of stairs, guests reach the kitchen, which is similarly drenched in a restful off-white palette. A small dining nook, where the clients will have their morning coffee and read the newspaper, is a moment of sheer fun, with red banquette seating and a tubular chair where Carlucci had the opportunity to inject a ‘blast of pattern’ via a leopard-print fabric.

Carlucci amped up the art deco glamour in the bathroom. Dark millwork, polished nickel, and black marble create a sophisticated, timeless atmosphere.’I loved the idea of bringing in black,’ Carlucci says. Open up the shower, though, and there’s a surprise: an enclosure of handmade brown tiles, mottled like tortoiseshell from the British company Balineum. ‘It’s fun designing small spaces because you can pack a punch,’ the designer adds.

The apartment’s sole bedroom is a serene retreat, thanks to taupe walls (‘Matchstick’ by Farrow & Ball), and a plush turquoise carpet. Like the living room, the colour palette is unexpected – the bed is upholstered in a deep rust velvet, while a reading chair is covered in a lime-coloured cotton – but the rich tones, sumptuous textures and neutral walls allow them to harmonise.

Carlucci didn’t have to shop for much furniture; items from the couple’s own collection were reupholstered and refinished. Flanking the bed are a pair of art deco nightstands from the husband’s bachelor apartment. ‘They've been with us a long time, and it's wonderful to see them,’ the client says. The living room sofa also got restuffed and reupholstered and is now the optimal snuggling spot for the homeowners’ Havanese, Ginger.

‘We wanted it to be luxurious, but without being fussy. And I think that Lauren has accomplished that perfectly,’ the client says. ‘We're very happy here.’

A basement gives a bar one immediate advantage: night arrives whenever the door opens. At Qode, beneath an outhouse in Gandipet on Hyderabad’s western edge, the light might dim, but the mood never does. Commissioned by Golkonda Hospitality, the Studio Nilasha-designed venue occupies 4,500 sq ft: a largely enclosed 3,000 sq ft basement and a further 1,500 sq ft outside. Entry begins in a corner of the café above, where a green-marble spiral staircase winds underground. Walnut encloses its outer curve and a mirror lines the inner face, cutting off the room above as guests descend. ‘Qode allows visitors to discover it gradually,’ says Nilasha, principal designer of her eponymous firm.

Wallpaper* dines at Qode, Hyderabad

The mood: marble underground

The central bar is the basement’s organising device. Black Marquina runs from the floor onto the counter, joined by deep-green Verde Guatemala marble and antique brushed brass. Above it, perforated brass and fluted glass form a tiered ellipse that works as lighting and bottle storage. Studio Nilasha designed the installation with lighting studio SPK Valo; from here, a three-dimensional ceiling spreads across the room, concealing pipes and wiring within its geometry.

Booths follow the perimeter in a loose, curved plan, creating pockets for groups without dividing the bar into separate rooms. Fluted walnut, black textured stone, antique mirror and tropical wallpaper make a suitably dense backdrop; emerald, topaz and burnt-sienna upholstery brings colour at seat level. Even the washroom joins in, with a monolithic Black Marquina basin, green tiles and a beaten-metal ceiling.

A set of doors changes the register entirely. Outside, the palette contracts to grey and green Kota stone, pale neo-cement, black-stained timber and stone-topped tables. Built-in seats gather around the existing trees, with branches and open sky replacing the basement’s geometric ceiling.

The food and drinks: Camembert, lamb and late hours

Qode’s menu covers Asia, the Mediterranean, Europe and India. The kitchen narrows the field to two recommendations. Start with baked Camembert, served with spiced honey, rosemary and roasted garlic for the table to share. Then order the Mediterranean braised lamb, pairing slow-cooked shanks with aromatic Arabic couscous. It has the substance required for dinner in a venue otherwise geared towards drinks and small plates. The bar does the same with Sakura San and Persian Jasmine, its two recommended cocktails.

Qode, The Golkonda Resort, Sagar Mahal Complex, Gandipet, Hyderabad, Telangana, India

Lighting a candle is an act of self-care. A simple gesture can create a soothing atmosphere, and now the Los Angeles-based design brand Dumæ wants to elevate this further. The Kayla Lighter is a chic replacement for the everyday match or worn-out plastic igniter.

Sculpted from brass, handcrafted in India and refillable, the lighter sits between a functional object and a homeware accessory, and is as beautiful as it is functional. Founded by Kym Gold and Sakshi Khurana, Dumæ works with artisan partners across India to create pieces that bring a sense of permanence and beauty to an everyday ritual.

The Kayla Lighter was presented alongside a wider collection, including pieces varying from tabletop and serving vessels to candle lights, lighting, and collectible gifts. What ties each piece together is its aesthetics and functionality, which encourage conversation, as mundane household objects are transformed into objects of beauty.

Dumæ's creative vision is centred on contemporary design paired with artisanal knowledge. The brand’s name is derived from Point Dume, the Malibu coastline where Gold grew up, and combined with Mae, a spiritual tribute to motherhood and the women who have shaped her life and creative perspective.

The founding partners come from a fashion background, with Gold previously co-founding the high-end jeans brand True Religion, while Khurana has worked across operations and product development with brands like Giorgio Armani and Urban Zen by Donna Karan. For them, Dumæ is a vessel to utilise their shared fashion experience and transplant it into the design world.

Working with ceramics, wax and metal, to paper, textiles and lighting, the brand has now ventured into sculptural brass through the Kayla Lighter, which now joins Dumæ’s portfolio of objects that can move effortlessly between homes, hotels and shared spaces.

Did you hear? The bathroom is the most precious room of the house: part wellness space, part intimate sanctuary, it is the private heart of a home and one that has often been overlooked. We round up four contemporary bathroom design ideas that our team created from this year's boldest bathroom launches – many spotted at Salone del Mobile – accessorised with unexpected design gestures that bring excitement to the washroom.

Browse our bathroom design ideas imagined to elevate the formerly humble room, from bold materiality to serene colour palettes, from unexpected wallcovering that add warmth to the room to spatial design that transforms a practical room into a refined, modern temple to the art of wellness.

Bathroom design trends to elevate your wellness space in 2027

Bold materials

Yes, traditional bathroom materials might be practical, but combine dynamic tiling and marble and top it off with brushed stainless steel for a modern take on the washroom. Laufen's 'Rivo’ washbasin’, in brushed stainless steel, is both utilitarian and elegant - accents like a wooden screen or a wall-mounted steel vase bring the room together in refined ways.

‘Pantàlica’ limited-edition screen, by Nicolò Spinelli, for Studio Twenty Seven. ‘Rivo’ washbasin’, by Laufen. ‘Flora’ basin levers, by Vincent Van Duysen, for Fantini. Oregano soap, by Loewe. Fleur Éclair eau de parfum, by Régime des Fleurs. Steel wall vase, by Eitan Boiarsky, from Tage Gallery. ‘Beaton’ double-ended bath in gloss, ‘Ten Ten’ bath/shower mixer with handwheels on standpipes in silver nickel, both by Lefroy Brooks. ‘Dots Glass’ wall lamp, by Martín Azúa, for Vibia. Terry towel in Yellow Ochre, by Tekla. ‘Mid’ wall tiles in Ambra and Turchese, price on request, by Ragno. ‘Santafiora Venata’ floor slabs, by Margraf

Design with tiles

A tile can go a long way if the colour is right, and a bold colour combination can offer unexpectedly serene interiors. We chose Florim's 'SensiColore' tiles in moss with burgundy accents, and arranged them structurally to design the room. The rich hues of the tiles perfectly frame our sunken bath and give a serene, peaceful mood to the space.

‘OG-NM301' stainless steel stool, by Andrea Ferrari, for Quadro Design and NM3. Terry towel in Forest Green, by Tekla. Scent of Marihuana soap, by Loewe. True Ionized Cleansing Water 1, by Buly 1803. Rock River Melody eau de parfum; Fleur Éclair eau de parfum, by Régime des Fleurs. ‘Nuio Duo Zen Edition' bathtub, by Stefan Diez, for Kaldewei. ‘Diametro 35 S' deck-mounted bath mixers, by Ritmonio. ‘SensiColore' tiles in Vino and Muschio, by Matteo Thun and Benedetto Fasciana, for Florim

Unexpected wallcoverings

A perfect backdrop for our sculptural bathroom set up is offered by this wall panelling that adds warmth to the room. The Canaletto Walnut wall panelling from Florim is a perfect way to bring visual richness to this temple of wellness, that feels more like a sophisticated cabin in the woods than a room for quotidian routines.

‘Greenwich’ towel in Rhus, by Baina. ‘Cenote’ bathtub, from by Patricia Urquiola, for Agape. ‘Flora’ floorstanding bath mixer, by Vincent Van Duysen, for Fantini. ‘Settecento Cut’ washbasin in Bianco, by Giulio Cappellini, for Ceramica Flaminia. ‘FFQT’ basin mixers, by Formafantasma, for Quadro Design. ‘Crea’ wall panelling, by Marazzi. ‘SensiColore’ wall tiles in Vino, by Matteo Thun and Benedetto Fasciana, for Florim

Similarly, the Schotten & Hansen Ridgeline wall panelling is 'inspired by the rugged beauty of split wood and the deep, time-worn tones of oak': a concept that perfectly encapsulates the new tonal and material approach of these rooms. Here, the material is accompanies by a chromatic takeover in the form of tiling and textiles: the Albers-inspired tiles on the floor and the grand curtain at the back help create a space you'll want to get lost in.

‘Allure’ wall-mounted double-movement mixer, by Natalino Malasorti, for Ceadesign. Fleur Éclair eau de parfum, by Régime des Fleurs. True Ionized Cleansing Water 1, by Buly 1803. ‘Arc’ sconce in Satin Black, by De Troupe ‘Reverie’ freestanding bath, by Kohler. ‘Axor Uno’ curved floorstanding bath spout, by Phoenix Design, for Axor. ‘Adamo & Eva’ cotton velvet in 143, by Dedar. ‘Tabouret Meribel’ stool, by Charlotte Perriand, for Cassina. ‘Celeste & Chalk’ towels, by Baina. ‘Ridgeline’ wall panelling, by Torben Hansen and Francisco Cortina, for Schotten & Hansen. ‘Homage to the Square’ floor tiles in Sea, by the Josef & Anni Albers Foundation, for Mutina

Modern sanctuaries

Think of a bathroom as a temple of wellness: a space where symmetry, dramatic lighting and bold structural detail come together to celebrate the act (and art) of bathing. In our space, the elegant centrepiece of the basin is flanked by discreet shower mixers, and the porcelain-effect wallcovering (in a shade that bears the evocative name of 'Magma') offers a delicious accompaniment to the space's visual effect.

‘Octo’ built-in thermostatic shower mixers with two stop valves, by David Lopez Quincoces; ‘Bar 59’ 50mm rain jet shower heads, by Matteo Fiorini with Studio Lys, all for Zucchetti. ‘Orfeo’ mirrors; ‘Teseo’ washbasin, by Andrea Parisio and Giuseppe Pezzano, for Ceramica Cielo. ‘Vice Versa’ towel in Terracotta, by Hermès. ‘Diametro 35 S’ exposed single-lever basin mixers, by Ritmonio. Oregano liquid soap, Tomato Leaves soap, both by Loewe. ‘Éclos’ surface in Wondr, by Cosentino. ‘Grande Lume’ slabs in Magma, by Marazzi

Although lighting designer Nathan Orsman likens his role in interiors to that of a 'back-up dancer', he appreciates the opportunity to get involved with the design of a space from the beginning. 'We make architecture look incredible and help architects show their work in the best possible way,' he tells Wallpaper*. The founder of New York-based studio Orsman Design believes a 'great amount of success' comes out of a hands-on incorporation of lighting into an overall design vision. Therefore, it is not uncommon that he suggests placing a door further down the hallway for optimum natural light or moving a wall to hang art where it can best stand out at night time.

Orsman’s philosophy is rooted in his belief that 'light is about movement through a space'. The Australian-born designer’s recent Elle Mara Garage project in Sagaponack, New York, reflects this trust in illuminating interiors with both bold decisions and a fleeting tactility.

The true charm in lighting the private residence’s car garage and basketball court was the opportunity to orchestrate a feeling texturally different from interior designer Tony Ingrao’s white and creamy tones in the rest of the Hamptons house. The garage and the adjacent court, which are reached through a wine cellar, immediately pop with Orsman’s curation of sleek tones and cinematic lighting. 'We wanted to give this feeling of descending into a fully illuminated nightclubby set-up,' explains the designer, who does justice to his vision with resin-poured black walls and grey floors.

With his clients’ openness for something ‘completely unexpected [given] the rest of the house’, Orsman created a visceral sunken display room for seven cars, each crowned with a custom-stretched membrane light panel.

While these ceiling lights can be switched between cool and warm tones of white, a host of surface-mounted Ketra fixtures across the walls washes the dim interiors with painterly colours, ranging from a thick red to an energetic blue. This downlight system lets vehicles’ different finishes stand out with an elevated sculptural presence, whether a red Ferrari or a silver Benz. The ceiling lights yield a liquid, almost pond-like, illumination on the resin floor, as its surface dances between splashy hues of green and purple. 'We wanted to give the clients the ability to change the feeling of the space,' adds Orsman.

The basketball court, which is sunk even lower than the garage, expands this moody aura with sound-absorbing wall panelling in two shades of grey. The garage’s nocturnal atmosphere spills into the recreation area, where the hoop is illuminated with a dramatic series of ceiling fixtures. Pairs of disc-shaped lights that recall basketballs are held together with three stripes, similar to the boundary lines on a court’s floor. The bulletproof acrylic system, which is clipped into the ceiling with a magnetic receiver, is custom-produced by Italian company BlackLight.

The sleek project is one of many celebrated in Orsman’s upcoming Rizzoli book, Light: Illuminated Interiors and Architecture. The 320-page title tracks the designer’s trajectory of illuminating a wide span of homes across the United States, including those for Oprah Winfrey, Ina Garten, Stephen Colbert, Tommy Hilfiger, and Marc Jacobs, who penned the catalogue’s foreword.

The tome also documents Orsman’s trust in close collaborations with interior designers and architects, among them Wallpaper* US400 honoree Kelly Behun, Ashe Leandro, and Gil Schafer, to achieve nuanced touches of light. 'The powerful part in what we do is to pay attention to the negative space,' says Orsman. He adds: 'We have to be specific about what we are lighting up because sometimes less is more poignant.'

Light: Illuminated Interiors and Architecture comes out on September 29, 2026

With its world-class concert halls and galleries, peaceful fountain court and large foyers wrapped in textured raw concrete walls, London’s Barbican is a haven for arts, architecture and design fans. Now they will be able to bring home a slice of the brutalist landmark’s aesthetics, thanks to a furniture collection by Made and the Barbican, available to buy now

Built in 1982 on the largest Second World War bomb site in the City of London, the Barbican was designed by Chamberlin, Powell and Bon as both a cultural and residential complex, and the new 23-piece collection finds inspiration not only in the estate’s public spaces – such as the concert hall and raised walkways – but also in some of its original apartments.

Explore the Made x Barbican furniture and lighting collection

The design team at Made, a homeware brand that aims to make high-end design accessible, worked closely with the Barbican, Europe’s largest multi-arts centre, sifting through its archives and researching the pioneering world of designer Miriam Howitt, who was tasked with creating five show homes for the development in the late 1960s.

Inspired by her travels to Scandinavia and bold Dutch interiors, Howitt’s work shaped the project’s direction, and resulted in a range of furniture, lighting, textiles and accessories infused with architectural references to the Barbican’s unique visual language of sculptural forms, modular layouts, grid structures and curved silhouettes.

‘The ambition was to create a complete product range that works both in isolation and together in an open living space,’ says Made’s in-house design team. ‘The final designs reimagine products, graphics and architectural details through a new lens, and into a cohesive product range that captures Barbican living: bold, considered and inherently social.’

The Barbican’s concrete architecture is softened by a recurring motif of semi-circles, often upside down, which appears throughout the complex, from the sills of the podium windows and the top-floor penthouse roofs, to fountains, stair towers, and the shape of the Frobisher Crescent apartment building at the centre of the estate.

In the new furniture collection, these signature curves can be found in the wooden side panels of the ‘Dual’ accent chairs, whose silhouette recalls the estate’s concrete pillars; the ‘Plinth’ coffee table, inspired by the sunken seating pods found next to the Barbican lake; or the ‘Curve’ lamp series, which echoes the Concert Hall’s tubular acoustic panels.

As well as the pick-hammered textured concrete (a massive undertaking that took nearly 17 years from the start of construction to completion), another key element of the Barbican is its heavy coffered ‘waffle’ ceilings – a concrete-saving structural grid that also creates a great pattern in the Barbican’s indoor and outdoor spaces. Their rounded square shape is mirrored by the ‘Coffer’ series of ceiling lights and wall lights.

Also available are two sofa designs, a dining table and chairs, and a wooden sideboard in stained ash. The warm colour palette found in the lights and soft furnishings, including moss greens and burgundy hues, is similar to the one Howitt used in her show apartments.

Accessories include a graphic cushion featuring the Barbican’s ‘boat edge’ balconies, as well as the ‘Brute’ retro deep-pile rug in ochre tones and white stripes. ‘In 1967, Howitt anchored the Barbican’s plain off-white flats with “show-stopping” patterned carpets,’ explains the Made design team. ‘By using bold colours to create visual weight, she ensured the spacious rooms felt grounded instead of empty.’

To celebrate the launch of the collection, Made will be creating a free immersive installation at the Barbican Centre in partnership with London Design Festival this September. Located at the Barbican Level G Hub Space, it will shine a light into the archives of the Barbican and the inspiration behind the collection.

Meanwhile, the Barbican is currently on the lookout for a designer to reimagine a bespoke range of up to 500 pieces of furniture across its public spaces, as part of a complete overhaul timed for its 50th anniversary. The competition is open to anyone, and proposals must be submitted online by the end of the month. Expectations are high – the original designer of the Barbican furniture was none other than Robin Day.

The ‘Made x Barbican’ collection, with prices starting from £32, is available at Made.com now , with selected items also available at the Barbican Shop.

Announced today (12 August), Ikea’s latest collection seeks to answer some pretty lofty questions: what is art, what can it do and why does it matter? Called ‘Konstrunda’, the collection – available now – includes 22 decorative objects, textiles and furniture pieces by seven artists and designers, whose brief was to bring art into the home.

Using the words ‘liberated, happy and fearless’ as a guide, Andu Masebo, Lisa Hilland, Igor Holtermann, Ingrid Leander Berg, Emanuele Stamuli, Lisa Reiser and Akanksha Deo have come up with a collection of adventurous pieces – mostly vessels and decorative objects that you could imagine displayed on a plinth in an art gallery, but also intriguing textiles and small pieces of furniture with out-of-the-ordinary forms and finishes.

To create ‘Konstrunda’, Ikea creative leader Karin Gustavsson says she deliberately chose people working across different disciplines and with a variety of materials and techniques. ‘Some are people I've worked with for years, while others I discovered through their exhibitions or by following their work,’ she explains. ‘“Konstrunda” is rooted in a belief that art should be accessible. Rather than focusing on a specific format, the collection invites multiple interpretations of what art in the home can be.’

In ‘Konstrunda’, those interpretations range from Swedish designer Lisa Reiser’s decorative tabletop objects, with their futuristic, fluid forms realised in glossy lacquered glass, to Andu Masebo’s tubular steel side tables and lacquered pine stools, alongside a doughnut-shaped vessel in mirror-polished stainless steel.

Akanksha Deo has created a series of ‘companion’ pieces, while Emanuele Stamuli has contributed black-and-white objects based on graphic, totemic forms. Swedish designers Igor Holtermann and Ingrid Leander Berg have applied overlapping palm motifs to cotton cushion covers, a rug and a mirror.

One of the most high profile names among the cohort is London designer Andu Masebo (recognised as a Future Icon by Wallpaper* back in December 2022), whose recent projects include bespoke furniture for TOG’s sustainable Black & White Building, modular tables for AHEC, an exhibition of birdhouses at the South London Gallery and a live design-research project for London Design Festival 2025. His pieces for the ‘Konstrunda’ collection translate a design language already established through that wider practice into objects available at an Ikea price point. He sees his objects for Ikea as prompts for customers to exercise their own creativity.

‘What I love about these objects the most is that they create the potential for the creativity of others in the home,’ he tells Wallpaper*. ‘Surfaces that naturally invite decoration, objects that reflect their environment and that change depending on what's arranged around and in them. Art isn't just an object, it's also an action.’

Trained in carpentry, metalwork and ceramics, Masebo has said in the past that his hands-on involvement in the making process has naturally led him to design objects with an air of honesty or truth to them – or, as he puts it, ‘things that engage with how they are made and that lean more into feelings than aesthetics’. The collaboration with Ikea has tapped into this inclination, showing up in his material and finishing choices, which he has kept deliberately simple ‘so that the making wouldn’t involve any unnecessary processes’.

For visual artist and in-house Ikea designer Akanksha Deo, whose playful work references Indian textile traditions, the pieces she has created for ‘Konstrunda’ are not just objects, but something closer to friends. They include ‘The Melting Pot’, a highly polished stainless steel vessel squeezed into itself. ‘The Custodian’ – a stack of building blocks with a mirrored centre – draws on the wooden toys of Channapatna, a small town in Karnataka, India, known for generations of turned-wood craftsmanship. ‘It watches over your space when you’re gone, and sits quietly with you when you’re home,’ she says. Meanwhile, ‘Confetti Carol’ – the name given to a hanging tapestry made from blue recycled polyester – exists simply to bring a little optimism into a room.

‘Growing up, I watched how easily reverence finds its way into small things: a stone placed on a windowsill, a leaf kept for no reason, a carved figure given a name,’ she reflects. ‘There’s something in us that wants to believe an object can hold more than its material, that it can watch, remember, protect.’

For Deo, bringing art into the home should be something joyful and even a little humorous. ‘Life is genuinely not that serious, and design that pretends otherwise tends to be exhausting to be around. A little levity goes a long way. We could all use more of it, frankly.’

For Ikea, ‘Konstrunda’ also feels like a further push into the territory of collectible design – something its experimental Ikea ‘PS’ collections and collaborations with designers including Gustaf Westman and Ilse Crawford have edged towards in the past, with some pieces later becoming sought-after on the secondary market. ‘Konstrunda’ brings some of the experimentation, individual authorship and art-object quality associated with collectible design into the realm of mass production.

‘We can bring distinctive art objects into people's homes at a scale very few others can,’ reflects Gustavsson. ‘For me personally, working at the intersection of art and mass production has been one of the most rewarding parts of this project. It was a constant balance between preserving the creative vision and finding innovative ways to produce it for the many.’

‘Konstrunda’ available worldwide now. Browse the full collection.

Having frequented the optometrist for the past 25 years, it is hard not to notice the lack of inspiring interiors. Often greeted with two options: a moody space with ironically poor lighting and dingy carpets, or it is brightly lit, white, and clinical space; either doesn’t inspire the desire to have one's eyesight corrected. However, Wink offers something completely different. Spearheaded by Mitchell Zurek and Andy Kelly of Brud Studia the interior of the Australia-based optometrist feels like coming home.

‘Optical stores have always felt to me like the waiting room of a very wealthy dentist,’ says Andy Kelly, one half of the studio. ‘Everything is intimidating, and you're expected to make a very serious decision about your face in front of a stranger. They can be beautiful, but they're rarely relaxed. We wanted to make somewhere people forgot they were shopping altogether. Somewhere that invited leaning. Somewhere you wanted to sit, drink a coffee, open a drawer.’

The optometrist in Elwood, Melbourne, marks the duo's first retail interior project under Brud Studia. However, they wanted to create an environment which stepped away from behaving like a traditional retail space. Instead, they created a character.

Zurek and Kelly wanted to create a space where it felt like you were stepping inside someone else's world for half an hour. ‘Every decision was simply asking what our character would have done.’

They looked at the old English nursery rhyme, There Was an Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe, ‘except this time she lived inside her glasses case, which itself lived inside a Simone Rocha egg clutch,’ Kelly shares. ‘She was part Iris Apfel, part impossibly glamorous grandmother. She tears bread without ever crushing it. Every object she has arrived through circumstance rather than shopping. She collected beautiful things but couldn't remember where she'd found half of them. Every surface held another story. Every drawer concealed another treasure; nothing matched, and somehow everything belonged together.’

Much like their worldly character, the interiors are well travelled, with references dancing between Milan apartments, 70s New York, and Australia’s suburbia influenced by European sensibilities. A retail counter was replaced with a kitchen, with a central island at the core of the space, as Kelly shares, ‘Counters separate people. Kitchens bring them together. The island asks clients to gather around it rather than stand opposite. It changes the entire rhythm of the space.’

Inside, the interior is complete with stainless steel, block colours, and timber joinery. Collectible design objects punctuate the space. It's an amalgamation of texture and tones, yet feels entirely cohesive, without a central piece fighting for attention. ‘Retail interiors often feel obligated to announce themselves immediately, but we were far more interested in creating a space that revealed itself gradually,’ explains the studio founders.

‘Even the boldest gestures, like the lacquered red cabinetry, exist within a deliberately domestic scale. There are tiny mosaic tiles underfoot, small drawers to open, carefully considered handles, mirrors that catch unexpected reflections, and lighting that quietly punctuates the room rather than dominates it. Nothing exists simply to be photographed. The experience unfolds slowly, rewarding curiosity rather than demanding your immediate attention.’

Glasses occupy a funny place in our lives, as they allow you to try out different versions of yourself and how you want to present yourself to the world. Kelly and Zurek agree: ‘They're practical objects, of course, but they're also one of life's great disguises. A new pair of glasses quietly permits you to become someone else. Wink is, technically speaking, an optometrist. But with the right frames and a hurried box of black hair dye applied in a petrol station bathroom, she's retail in witness protection.’

With many reflective materials from mirrors to the industrial mesh ceiling, each new glimpse offers another version of the space. ‘In an optometrist, you're constantly looking at yourself. Rather than disguising that fact, we exaggerated it.’ There is a disguised tension. And perhaps that is rather fitting.

brudstudia.com
winkoptom.com.au

1970s Italian design is having a moment: from little-known furniture pieces to legendary design experiments, lighting and even bathroom taps, the year's new launches were punctuated by reissues of pieces that help paint a picture of this unsung decade in Italian design.

The 1970s in Italian design were largely defined by 'Italy: the new domestic landscape', a 1972 MoMA exhibition that reflected on the country's culmination of creative excellence following the industrial boom that represented the post-WWII period in design. It was a look at Italian design at a time when Italian design was reviewing itself.

Italian design critic Paola Antonelli, the MoMA's Senior Curator of Architecture and Design, drew a comparison between the political and social turmoil of the decade, and the current times of uncertainty. Antonelli noted how designers in the 1970s (and those taking part in the MoMA exhibition in particular) represented 'a culture that was really worried about the future of society. It's really interesting to see how designs that stemmed from a complicated moment are now being celebrated with nostalgia.

'Italian design has always been great: it was fabulous in the 50s. It was even better in the 60s, and in the 70s, was still great, but with this undertone of anxiety.'

Antonelli also explains how the evolution of Italian design throughout the second half of the last century took projects beyond their aesthetic and functionality, but made them part of a bigger domestic ecosystem (something the exhibition documented well and can be found in examples such as Joe Colombo's Total Furnishing Unit. 'It was a moment of real fervour,' concludes Antonelli. 'It had to do not with products, but rather with new ways of life. '

Great 1970s Italian design reissued for contemporary interiors

Cigno chair by Vittorio Varo, for Visionnaire

Originally conceived in the early 1970s for Visionnaire's parent company IPE, the Cigno chair by Vittorio Varo was fittingly chosen to furnish 'Déjà-Vu', a listening room curated by Marco Morandini during Milan Design Week 2026, that celebrated the decade's cultural spirit through design and music.

Parioli Cabinet by Lodovico Acerbis

A 1971 design by Acerbis founder Lodovico Acerbis, Parioli is a piece that brings architectural modularity to storage furniture. The wooden structure (in ash or walnut) disappears behind the geometry of satin stainless steel doors, whose design define the design with an expressive aesthetic informed by rigour and movement.

Sintesi by Ernesto Gismondi for Artemide

The first Artemide lamp designed by founder Ernesto Gismondi, the Sintesi brings the bare functionality that defined 1970s Italian design to the fore. A few essential components define its design, that is both practical and versatile, with two profiles that intersect to create a standing lighting object (and a wall version based on the same system). 'It’s like a magic formula and finding it is never guaranteed,' said its creator.

Alcinoo by Gae Aulenti for Artemide

Gae Aulenti's 1975 design for Artemide merges an appreciation for artisanal techniques (the mouth blown glass sphere) with an industrial language (the metal cylinder holding it). A sculptural home for an essential lighting idea, the lamp is a shell for three lightbulbs set at its base. 'It was tough, Gae has strong ideas (...)' Artemide founder Ernesto Gismondi recalled. 'And the moment you switch the lamp on, you realise she was right: the character fills the room with tiny traces of light.

T35 Trio by Pierangelo Gallotti

The 1970s marked a turning point for Italian glass brand Gallotti e Radice, who celebrated their 70th anniversary at Milan Design Week this year. In 1975, it developed a method of joining panes of glass with a simple stainless steel joint, enabling larger and more structurally complex pieces, such as the ‘T35 Trio' – a three-part coffee table set designed by Pierangelo Gallotti in 1975 – now presented in an anniversary edition in bronze-tinted tempered glass and brushed silver travertine. Text: Laura May Todd

Papero by Cini Boeri for Codiceicona

Cini Boeri's Papero was conceived in 1971 and reflects the experimental approach to craft and industrial design that defined the decade. Shaped as a duck (from which it borrows its name), the lamp features two impact-resistant opal polystyrene pieces connected by a chrome-plated steel plate with a black PVC profile.

Fachiro by Marzio Cecchi for Gufram

Marzio Cecchi's 1975 Fachiro for Gufram reflects the more playful end of the decade's design spectrum. Harsh looking but definitely comfortable to sit on thanks to the soft leather construction, the design is informed by the work of Cecchi's couturier mother and his ongoing observations of nature, and how it can dialogue with design.

Pallino by Elio Martinelli

A 1970s design by Elio Martinelli, Pallino is both playful and minimal. Dubbed 'a curious lamp' from its creator, the design of Pallino brings to mind an inquisitive character taking a peek at whoever is on the other side. 'Reintroducing Pallino means bringing back into today’s homes a touch of the formal lightness and chromatic boldness that made Italian design great,' comments Emiliana Martinelli, President of Martinelli Luce. 'It means choosing an object with a story to tell, one that still looks ahead together with those who own it.'

Joe Colombo for Mamoli

Joe Colombo's design was firmly rooted in the idea that 'all the objects needed in a house should be integrated with the usable spaces; hence, they no longer ought to be called furnishings but ‘equipment.’ His Total Furnishing Unit was originally presented at the exhibition 'Italy: The New Domestic Landscape' and among a bigger design idea for domestic living, it introduced the humble tap not just as accessory, but as 'an integral part of both the space and the domestic experience'. Mamoli's reissue of the tap design is only slightly updated for modern use, and reflects Colombo's idea of a home based on functionality.

This is the latest instalment of The Inside Story, Wallpaper’s series spotlighting intriguing, innovative and industry-leading interior design.

Good things come in small packages – and this 80-square-metre apartment in Madrid's Malasaña district, reimagined by London- and Mallorca-based studio Archive for Space, proves it. The home feels historical, contemporary and ‘grandmotherly’ all at once. On paper, those elements shouldn't coexist; in practice, they do.

For co-founders Arabella Maza and Stephen Maginn, the project was guided by a wish to preserve the apartment's early twentieth-century bones while layering in contemporary interventions. Malasaña itself offered a reference point – a neighbourhood of ornate façades, independent vintage stores, late-night bars and bohemian spirit. Restored plaster cornices, decorative ceiling medallions and original timber shutters all pay tribute to that heritage.

During the renovation, the designers uncovered treasure beneath the old carpet: the apartment's original terracotta flooring. Restored and patched, the tiles shift from checkerboard to diamond motifs, becoming both a practical foundation and conceptual anchor for the project.

Recreate the mood

Against this earthy backdrop, polished stainless steel introduces an industrial precision. Maza has described the aesthetic as ‘a grandmother in latex’ – rather vivid shorthand for a space willing to challenge convention without losing its warmth.

Its position within a shared building ruled out major alterations to its envelope. Instead, the studio leaned on spatial efficiency and material continuity to turn a long, narrow footprint into a home with two bedrooms, two en-suite bathrooms and a generous central kitchen. Living spaces occupy the street-facing rooms, while the bedrooms and bathrooms wrap around an internal patio.

At the heart of the plan sits the kitchen – our favourite space. Cool steel, used for the countertops and integrated appliances, pairs irresistibly with softly gathered linen skirting below, while rough plaster walls and the restored floors add tactility. The circular extractor hood, custom-designed by the studio, deserves a mention too – it reads more like a sculptural object than an appliance.

That dialogue between softness and structure continues in the living room, where a restored ceiling medallion and a loose-covered sofa sit alongside a vintage floral armchair, stainless-steel coffee table and the charming Pea Head Lamp by Six Dots Design. In the primary bedroom, a cross-stitched floral textile stands in for a headboard, adding another handmade touch.

The bedroom also embraces one of our favourite design moves: floor-to-ceiling drapery. Here, the curtains separate the room from its en-suite – an unconventional solution born of spatial constraints. The bathrooms depart from the creamy palette found elsewhere, wrapped in glossy black tiles with chrome fittings and veined Calacatta marble.

It would have been easy to overplay the contrasts – forcing the floral armchair against shiny metal, or leaning too nostalgic with the buttery yellow walls. Instead, this is an apartment that knows exactly when to make a statement and when to step back – making it, in our estimation, very close to perfect.

Tasked with preserving the heritage of his late father, legendary French designer Pierre Paulin, Benjamin Paulin has been clear that this design legacy is not static. Interpreting the late designer's ethos, Paulin set up Paulin, Paulin, Paulin with his wife Alice Paulin as a studio that expands the design world by connecting the original ideas with contemporary design and popular culture.

Among the latest initiatives is an installation to backdrop British record producer Fred Again.. and Mexican trio Latin Mafia's collaborative mixtape, '9 months & 50 hours', recorded at LagoAlgo, a cultural centre set within a 1960s building on the shores of a lake in Bosque de Chapultepec, Mexico City.

The artists installed themselves in the modernist architectural masterpiece with the aim of working on a collaborative mixtape, documented on a livestream on YouTube. The artists worked from the space, longing on Paulin's masterpiece which proved a fitting design to encourage creative brainstorming.

This installation is a fitting embodiment of the designer's original idea. Paulin conceived the Dune sofa as part of his radical vision for an interior design based on fluid landscape, rather than static objects. The modular system encourages freedom of movement and is designed with conversation in mind. While the piece was never produced during the designer's lifetime, it is one of his most celebrated works and an integral part of Paulin, Paulin, Paulin's celebration of his legacy and released in super limited edition.

'By accompanying Fred Again.. and Latin Mafia during the final moments of their creative process, Paulin, Paulin, Paulin continues its dialogue with today's leading cultural figures, placing its timeless designs at the heart of contemporary artistic expression,' reads a note from the studio introducing their involvement in the collaboration. This installation continues Benjamin Paulin's exploration of his father's legacy through popular culture, and music in particular.

Earlier this year, he launched Sounds Like Paulin, a cultural label centred on music with the aim of transforming 'the concept of the salon into an immersive sound meeting place – an environment capable of bringing together friends and artists who might never have crossed paths otherwise,’ said Paulin upon launching the initiative.

Watch: '9 months & 50 hours' by Fred Again.. and Latin Mafia, hour 26 of finishing the mixtape

For young people living in a city, square footage in a home can be hard to come by. Studios with storage space are gold dust, house shares may be a necessity, and moves may be frequent. After spending time with young adults living in central London, Ikea has developed a new furniture and accessories collection inspired by the realities of renting, moving home, and student life.

Adpatable and portable, Ikea’s ‘Kompishäng’ collection

Among the participating twentysomethings, they discovered consistent challenges: limited storage space, and worn-out moving boxes used in place of furniture. What they also saw was a small number of easily movable objects that had been carried from one property to the next.

The ‘Kompishäng’ collection features 12 designs, including a folding table/desk, stools that stack to become shelving or a display unit, a pick-up-able bookshelf-bookend combo, a hanging wardrobe organiser that can be carried like a bag, back-of-door storage, and even a collapsible jute plant pot.

The collection is designed to be durable and functional, with pieces crafted from materials such as solid pine, powder-coated steel, and canvas.

'It's designed to accompany life's transitions – equally at home in a first apartment, a family house, or even a retirement space,' says designer David Wahl, whose round side table is lightweight and folds flat.

To help ease the stress of transporting furniture across the city, there is also a bag on wheels, which can equally serve as a shopping bag or a picnic basket. 'We wanted to create furniture that could be moved with your body alone, without needing a car,' comments Ikea designer Wiebke Braasch.

‘Even if you move often, you don’t want your home to feel temporary,' says Dora Ding, Ikea product developer. 'We saw how carefully people chose the things they carried with them from place to place, and that insight shaped the collection. We wanted the collection to be portable but still have a permanent look: people should feel settled and considered.’

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