Ten years after launching the Horizon luggage line, Louis Vuitton and industrial designer Marc Newson – most recently behind Ferrari’s Luce – have reunited to unveil the Horizon Aluminium, the maison’s first aluminium suitcase and a technically ambitious evolution of its contemporary travel offering.

The project builds on a longstanding dialogue around innovation, engineering and movement. Newson’s relationship with Louis Vuitton spans more than a decade, encompassing everything from a limited-edition biomorphic backpack to the sculptural bottles created for the House’s fragrance collection. In 2023, the pair notably unveiled ‘Cabinet of Curiosities’, a playful reinterpretation of the Louis Vuitton trunk featuring cube-like compartments upholstered in leather and suede.

Yet the Horizon line remains perhaps the most enduring expression of the partnership. First introduced in 2016, Horizon distilled Newson’s streamlined industrial design language into a lightweight suitcase engineered for the modern traveller.

The engineering of Louis Vuitton’s new Horizon Aluminum

Constructed from stamped and laser-cut aluminium, the Horizon Aluminium draws on a material long associated with Marc Newson’s bold, future-facing design language – from his seminal LC1 lounge chair of 1984 onwards – while also nodding to Louis Vuitton’s own legacy of crafting aluminium trunks for explorers and adventurers in the late 19th century. Accompanying the suitcase is a matching Vanity Case, finished in the same embossed aluminium and engineered with the same concealed technical detailing.

Described as the first rivet-free aluminium suitcase on the market, the Horizon Aluminium replaces conventional folded and riveted construction with a single-piece, full-depth shell mounted to an ultra-thin frame. External hinges have been eliminated entirely, their function absorbed into discreet mechanisms hidden within the body of the case. Even the Monogram pattern serves a practical purpose. Embossed directly into the aluminium surface, it enhances structural rigidity while eliminating the need for the reinforcing grooves typically found on hard-shell luggage.

Newson’s longstanding obsession with efficiency is evident throughout. An externally mounted trolley system frees up additional packing space inside, while oversized wheels and an extra-wide telescopic handle improve manoeuvrability in transit. Leather corner reinforcements, TSA-approved locks and a removable protective cover add further refinement. Available with either natural VVN leather or black leather trim, the collection has been engineered with longevity in mind, allowing for straightforward repair and maintenance over time.

The Louis Vuitton Horizon Aluminium will be released globally on 12 June via the Louis Vuitton website. Prices start at £2,580 for the Louis Vuitton Vanity Aluminium Case and £3,500 for the Louis Vuitton Horizon 55 Aluminium Suitcase.

The internet loves a controversy. The online commentariat will no doubt have plenty more to say about the new Ferrari Luce, even though no one outside of the company will get to drive the car for many months. It also feels facile to qualify the design as ‘controversial’ when the vast majority of naysayers haven’t seen the Luce in the metal.

Wallpaper* has. At the launch event in Rome, Marc Newson, and his colleagues Jeremy Bataillou and Christopher Wilson, talked through the genesis of the car, designed with Jony Ive and the rest of the LoveFrom team, while chief tester Raffaele de Simone gave his impressions of what it will be like to drive.

‘We were trying to get our heads around how to solve the challenges of five seats and four doors – challenges we’d not only expect but which we’d look forward to trying to solve,’ says Newson. ‘Pretty early on, we came up with the idea of the glass house or passenger cell – an element that encapsulates the interior. That in turn enabled us to separate – at least intellectually – the body of the car.’

Describing the glazed upper body and the aluminium-panelled bodywork as ‘two design elements that work in unison’, Newson walks us around the way the two interact. ‘You have the passenger cell that sits within the body of the car, expressed obviously through colour but also with a physical gap from the body,’ he explains. ‘The cell is a smooth, aerodynamic object that starts right at the very front of the car and extends seamlessly all the way to the back.’ As for the impact of optional colours and trim over and above the curated and colour-matched launch quintet, Newson is philosophical. ‘It’s quite controlled – the options are prescriptive,’ he says, ‘it’s not a free for all.’

The bodywork doubles as the primary aero form, from the big front wing, ‘where you’d normally have a bonnet, to the wing at the back doing the same thing, but with a smaller gap’. Subtle aerodynamic details abound, like the hidden knurling underneath the ‘bonnet’ wing to break up the airflow over the windscreen into many individual channels, reducing wind noise.

The benefits of Ferrari’s bespoke electric platform are plain to see on the interior. ‘The amount of interior space we’ve eked out of this platform is really impressive – it’s a bit like a Tardis,’ Newson says. According to Newson, the rear-opening door creates the best sense of distinction between inside and out, creating a portal that you step through to the spacious interior. A completely flat floor enables three across at the rear, and the electrically reclinable rear seats are also mounted slightly higher than the front.

‘We really wanted to touch on everything, to make sure everything felt in sync, right down to the user interface,’ Newson concludes. The ‘key ceremony’, wherein the e-ink faced rectangular key sinks into the glass centre console to activate the car, is just one of many ultra-focused details.

We especially like the way the controls indicate the current cabin temperature to help guide you to the right setting. Every spin of the (real) needles on the digital dials and embedded clock/chronometer is paired with an equally satisfying on-screen animation; nothing flashy or distracting, just pure graphical simplicity.

Behind the wheel

All this painstaking work was undertaken closely with the dedicated team of engineers and drivers at Ferrari, led by Raffaele de Simone. In a demonstration that’s somewhat akin to having a Michelin-starred chef describe a dish rather than let you taste it, de Simone attempted to convey the way in which the Luce’s performance upends tradition.

‘In the past, if you wanted more performance you had to reduce comfort and space. More comfort, and you had less performance. In the Luce, this relationship has been redrawn,’ he enthuses. De Simone attempts to describe how the complex approach to throttle mapping and power delivery doesn’t dump maximum power the millisecond you depress the accelerator. He implies that Ferrari test drivers – let alone ‘regular’ Ferrari customers – simply aren’t ready for these levels of torque.

Instead, the power is sliced, albeit not in way that is nostalgically linked to the revs of an engine. Then there’s the noise – amplified in the cabin in performance mode and projected out via front and rear speakers. ‘The sound helps the driver manage the car,’ de Simone says. ‘We didn’t want a fake nostalgic sound… there’s no reference to other Ferraris.’

Challenged as to whether or not the traction control can be completely disengaged (someone, somewhere, always thinks they know better), the test driver shrugged and said no. ‘It would be like having a horse in a bathroom full of glasses,’ he said in thickly accented Italian, a vivid mental picture indeed. ‘We give you the tools to go around a roundabout until the tyres die,’ he adds.

Will the future Luce ownership cadre be seeking this kind of experience or simply want a Ferrari badge, regardless of the better ergonomics, less inconvenience and the – much overlooked – ability to turn up somewhere without announcing your arrival with a fanfare of largely unwanted noise?

As previously noted, this is luxury motoring without the traditional signifiers – not brave, just different, and perfectly on brand for a company born of innovation and individuality.

Ferrari Luce, $550,000 / £438,406 + delivery, Ferrari.com, @Ferrari

Project Cosmos was one of the most secretive projects in Lürssen’s portfolio. The German superyacht builder launched the 114.2m vessel last August from its Rendsburg shipyard, about 80km north of Hamburg.

Now the vessel has been delivered and the name revealed. Nausicaä is exceptionally sophisticated, not just technically, but in interior and exterior form. Designed completely by Marc Newson, Nausicaä has pushed the boundaries of what is possible in superyacht design.

Named for a character in an early Studio Ghibli film (Nausicaä from the Valley of the Wind), the yacht was commissioned by Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa. Newson was given unprecedented creative freedom, allowing him to approach the shape of the hull and superstructure in innovative new ways to maximise the amount of deck space and accommodation.

The vessel instantly recognisable as a Newson design, not least because of the focus on simplifying complex technical components to their most graphically precise forms, such as the four radar spheres above the bridge. It also carries through the ethos of a conceptual design to a finished, fully functional object, something that characterises Newson’s work across every field, from watches to car design.

‘It is extremely challenging for a design project, of any description, to literally deliver on the vision conceived and presented at concept stage,’ Newson acknowledges. ‘Here, I am very proud to say that every detail, at every scale, has been realised at the most coherent level. Working with an immensely creative client has enabled rare opportunities to push the boundaries and test the limits of form, material and functionality.’

A superyacht is perhaps the largest bespoke design project outside of architecture, with the added demands of function and utility in every conceivable condition. The hull and superstructure of Nausicaä are fluid and dynamic, with scarcely a single flat surface used throughout the design. Lürssen’s manufacturing expertise in steel – honed over 150 years – was put to the test, with what the shipyard describes as geometrically precise ‘vast cylindrical steel forms’ used throughout the design.

Another singularly distinctive part of the design is the Skydome feature on the upper deck. This glass structure is formed from seven vast curved panes of glass, each 3m x 2.8m and 62mm, weighing in at 1,050kg. It’s part of the owner’s office suite and comes with bespoke internal bronze shutters to close off the outside world. It’s paired with a private sky terrace. Demonstrating Newson’s love of pushing materials to their limits – and the technical and manufacturing skills of Lürssen and its suppliers – each pane had to be hot-bent using gravity to achieve the form.

Another virtuoso piece of glazing wraps around the entire upper deck, interspersed with doors and technical spaces finished in the same gloss black to give the impression of a single unbroken form. At the bow, there’s a 19m wide observation lounge, with wall-to-wall glazing. The aft deck is open and spans the yacht’s entire 18m beam. Here there’s a pool and Jacuzzi as well as twin stairs down to the swim deck.

Lürssen CEO Peter Lürssen describes glazing technology as a core part of the company’s reputation for innovation. ‘From (2004’s) Rising Sun to (2024’s) Kismet, and now Nausicaä, we continue to push the boundaries of scale and structural complexity, creating spaces that are both aesthetically dramatic and functional for our clients. It is rare to find a modern Lürssen yacht that does not break new ground in glass engineering.’

Nausicaä has been designed to ensure that these views are worthwhile, with an Ice Class 1D hull providing enough strength for voyages through polar seas. On board, there are the facilities and equipment to tackle any kind of voyage, from the fixed helipad above the bow to the dry dock at the stern, where a 12.5m sportsfish tender can be launched via a sledge system. This retractable system extends over the swim platform to allow the tender into the water and disappears when not in use.

Inside, there are further innovations. Maezawa, the founder of Tokyo’s Contemporary Art Foundation, has given over part of the main deck to an internal gallery, with space for a revolving collection of art and sculpture in a two-level atrium, complete with circular viewing deck. In the aft atrium, there are elements like a bespoke sushi bar and table tennis area, all of which have been shaped by Newson’s studio.

Nausicaä was initially billed as the first yacht powered by a methanol fuel cell and the plan is still to install this pioneering powerplant in the hull at some point in the future. For now, there is a diesel-electric plant with five engines – two primary and three auxiliary – driving fully electric Azimuth thruster pods.

The onboard battery plant can deliver up to 2 MW of power, allowing for zero emission operation when moored for extended periods of time – sufficient to power all hotel systems simultaneously at peak load. This allows the yacht to operate silently, with zero local emissions, for extended periods.

Marc-Newson.com, @MarcNewsonOfficial

Lurseen.com, @LuerssenYachts

This is your first glimpse of the much-anticipated Ferrari Luce, the Italian manufacturer’s first foray into a pure EV. The anticipation – and trepidation – pours in from all quarters for several reasons. For the Ferraristi, the challenge is how the company can transition from a legacy based on combustion into the electric era. For everyone else, it’s the first time that two of the most accomplished industrial designers of an era – Jony Ive and Marc Newson – have been tasked with designing a production car.

The road to this point is long and windy and the final destination – for the public and media at least – has still not been reached. The full picture and complete reveal of the Luce will take place towards the end of May. What you see here was unveiled at an event in LoveFrom’s native San Francisco, attended by a smattering of design, tech and automotive media and presided over by Ive, Newson and Ferrari’s Chief Design Officer Flavio Manzoni.

The Ferrari Luce has to do many things, forging a new technological identity for the brand, as well as a new path through largely uncharted but undeniably treacherous territory. You see, the electrification of luxury and performance hasn’t gone quite as well as the auto industry wanted it to. Even though EVs bring bushels of performance, innovative design and levels of luxury and craft that equals traditional platforms, the world’s superrich haven’t exactly fallen over themselves to buy into the zero-emission era.

Ferrari’s statement on the matter is therefore eagerly awaited. The decision to hand design over to Ive and Newson and their team at LoveFrom is therefore simultaneously bold and prudent. Bold, because few brands have the self-confidence and the financial wherewithal to support such a complex project, and prudent, because by hiving off the Ferrari EV to an outside consultancy – however esteemed – there’s always scope to walk it back should the venture not live up to expectations.

Having experienced the second stage of a three-part reveal, we reckon that expectations – thus far – have been exceeded. Ive and Newson were brought on board at the behest of John Elkann, the youthful chairman of Ferrari and Stellantis and member of the mighty Agnelli dynasty.

Elkann’s global outlook is why we’re here in America to see an Italian car designed by an Englishman and an Australian. LoveFrom have chosen the 27th floor of the Transamerica Pyramid for the reveal, recently spruced up to impressive effect by Lord Foster (who worked closely with Ive on Apple Park, lest we forget).

It’s been nearly four and a half years since the collaboration was announced and four months since Ferrari unveiled its new bespoke Elettrica platform to the world. Stage two of this process is the unveil of both the new car’s name – Luce, or ‘light’ – and the key interior components. The exterior (most people’s only experience of a Ferrari) will be shown in May.

But for those familiar with Ive, Newson and the LoveFrom ethos, with its compulsion for flawless kerning, pixel-perfect graphics and the ability to coax hitherto unseen quality from the mass production process. All this is the product of decades of experience, not least at the head of one of a vast, hugely profitable company that had – and still has – the ability to ensure suppliers obey its every whim.

Ferrari is no faceless tech supplier, however. Fiercely independent and beholden to no one in its pursuit of excellence, it is uniquely suited to this kind of partnership. ‘It was a very intense collaboration – our chairman wished to make a clear statement in terms of innovation,’ says Manzoni, resplendent in a black Ferrari baseball cap, ‘the first electric Ferrari had to be something special.’ ‘A designer’s duty is to seize the opportunity of new technologies,’ he continues, citing the work of Bruno Munari, Achille Castiglioni and the other pioneering names who made Italy an industrial design nexus in the 1970s. ‘The idea was to avoid the conventions and codes of car design,’ Manzoni concludes.

After a brief presentation, at which Ferrari’s CEO Benedetto Vigna and Chief Design Officer Flavio Manzoni extol LoveFrom’s virtues, the farsightedness of Mr Elkann and their own humility at handing over such a large and important project, we’re shown a short brand film which introduces the Luce name for the first time.

Let’s be clear, with an EV, Ferrari is going out on a limb regardless of LoveFrom’s involvement. Public opinion – the wealthy, 1%-er Ferrari-buying public that matter – is still lukewarm about the idea of an electric luxury car, let alone one coming from the manufacturer of some of the most famous and fulsome combustion cars in automotive history. Vigna might enthuse about the Luce’s role – ‘a project that will enlighten the future and the road ahead’ - but first the weight of expectation needs to be banished by the jab of cutting-edge design.

Then it’s over to Newson and Ive, each resplendent in casual but contrasting pastel suits. ‘We’re enormously excited, completely terrified, but also honoured,’ Ive begins, before speaking of a ‘strong sense of affection between the two teams’ over the multi-year development program.

LoveFrom’s USP isn’t just for clients; Ive and Newson have carefully constructed a fortress of excellence for themselves, buoyed up by 60 multidisciplinary designers. The lion’s share of the design work, right down to the coding was done here in San Francisco, with Maranello handling the engineering and the all-important drive testing.

The Dash

It’s still a while before anyone outside of Ferrari gets behind the wheel. First, we have to actually see it. Ushered up a few more floors, the fruits of LoveFrom’s labours are revealed; the instrument binnacle, steering wheel, centre screen, control panel, centre console and overhead control panel, along with elegant seats trimmed in tan leather.

At first glance, the ensemble exudes a classical elegance, an analogue familiarity that invites touch and engagement. This is not an intimidating interior, far from it. It’s a space that celebrates materiality, engineering, innovation, craft and information design, rendered with a signature precision that preserves the dominance of the physical over the digital, even though there's a reliance on the latter for the actual display of information.

‘It’s a bizarre and lazy assumption that the interface should be digital if the power source is electric,’ Ive says simply, ‘I love Ferrari’s connection with the joy and love of driving. Their engineering team are breathtaking – we spent a lot of time trying to make this functional, simple and effective.’

In essence, the control surfaces of the Luce have been broken down into these discretely individual elements, related through function, material and aesthetics but treated as individual components. It’s strongly reminiscent of the kind of gadgetry the team has associated with in the past – a smartphone, a Leica camera, a wristwatch, a turntable.

The centre screen has touch capability but it’s not the priority interface. Instead, an array of five toggle switches and a dial provide the primary interaction to control the HVAC. Along the top, two layers of crisp graphics show power output and efficiency, while the centre section of the screen will presumably contain mapping and entertainment information (not yet revealed).

Most essentially, the centre screen contains an analogue clock embedded in the upper righthand corner. Featuring physical hands over a digital face, the clock can be repurposed as a compass and a chronometer, the graphics seamlessly shifting beneath the hands. Two physical buttons add another layer of engagement.

Many contemporary Ferraris offer an optional driver information screen embedded in the dash, but the Luce avoids any duplication by means of a simple mechanical device; the display can be orientated to the passenger by means of the aluminium grab handle mounted below the screen. This doubles up as a palm rest for activating switches or entering information – no hovering over a grimy touchscreen trying to stab the right spot.

The primary instrument binnacle is another self-contained unit, only this time it’s united with the steering column and wheel; they all move and adjust together as a single object. Three digital dials, with another analogue needle in the large centre dial, provide a clarity of information more akin to a helicopter cockpit than a road car. The glass here is lens-like, creating a parallax effect when you move your head, reinforcing the sense of depth and quality.

LoveFrom developed their own typeface for the car, LF Maranello, overseen by resident typographer Antonio Cavedoni. It's all part of a user-centric approach that aims to simplify and demystify. ‘Within a minute of looking at this, you know how to use it,’ says Ive, adding that ‘we’ve drawn on everything we know as a team.’

The Wheel

The wheel is another piece of purist industrial design, the distillation of decades of Ferrari heritage with the utmost graphic simplicity. It has three spokes, as per tradition, with the aluminium structure laid bare. The leather clad rim has a slim, delicate profile, while Ferrari’s signature manettino dial is duplicated – one for driving mode, one for handling mode – set each side of the wheel along with other key drive functions. Indicators are recessed aluminium buttons on the centre spokes, while the paddles operate the Luce’s regenerative braking system.

The Centre Console

The centre console contains the drive selector, window controls and key dock. The latter is a rectangular yellow Ferrari badge, with an e-ink display that turns the yellow background black when the key snaps magnetically into its receptacle and sinks into the glass finished surface. It’s a little piece of theatre, one that goes part way to replacing the snarl and bark of conventional ignition.

The Overhead Console

A separate overhead console houses the aviation inspired Launch Control selector, which must be pulled down and twisted to activate the Luce’s maximum acceleration mode. The centre console extends through the cabin to serve the two rear seats, with another screen, switch bank and two of the most meticulously composed air vents you’re ever likely to see.

These mirror the vents on the dash, with matt aluminium housing and a simple twist mechanism to open the airflow. The move is accompanied by a delightfully mechanical click, a noise and feel that has been carefully honed over countless iterations.

The minimalist material palette transcends the usual automotive mix of metal, carbon fibre, and hard and soft touch plastics. 100% recycled aluminium is used extensively, often CNC machined from solid billets and anodised to create a soft, microscopic texture. Glass surfaces use scratch-resistant glass from Corning, the original iPhone supplier.

The Seats

The seats are more classical, with a ribbed back panel and integrated headrest that references Ferraris of old. Finished in soft tan leather, they eschew the luxury industry’s fascination with elaborate inserts, stitch patterns and sporting form factors.

Like every component in the new industry, the seats, console and particular the dash binnacle are designed to be appreciated from every angle. Because the latter stands proud of the bulkhead, the rear is just as important as the front – you wouldn’t expect anything less from a team of product designers, right down to the last screw.

Despite all this tactile delight there’s still no indication of what the Luce will actually look like. All we know is that it is a large four-door, four-seat GT, along the lines of Ferrari’s Purosangue SUV. The Elettrica EV platform, revealed late last year, will put out around 1,000bhp through no less than four electric motors, be powered by a sizeable 122kWh battery and have a target range of over 300 miles.

There will be no artificial engine noise, but instead a soundtrack generated by the electrically amplified noise of the mechanical components, tuned by a noise cancelling system to exclude unwanted frequencies and capable of running completely silently when required. Handling will be bolstered by active suspension, a development of the system onboard the Purosangue, that makes use of the four individual at-wheel motors to enhance the dynamic experience. In the absence of combustion, feedback, drama and sensation will be created in other ways.

Thus far, design predictions have shown an evolution of current Ferrari design language. Clean sheet briefs are truly rare things to find in the world of car design. We think – and hope – Ive and Newson have gone much further. Will the Luce take on the crisp wedgy profile of the 1973 308 GT4, the poised muscularity of the 1966 275 GTB4 or the fluid sci-fi drama of Pininfarina’s 512S Modulo concept from 1970 (just three examples of the cornucopia of iconic car design in the Ferrari annals)? It could be a synthesis of all three and more or a deliberate avoidance of everything.

These historic cars - and many more – were lovingly dissected and redrawn as handsome vignettes by the LoveFrom team, part of the lavish four volume set of bound research findings and recommendations created in the first six months of the project. ‘You can’t work across disciplines without an insatiable curiosity to learn,’ says Ive, explaining how this research phase is crucial to any LoveFrom project. ‘It demonstrated our deep interest in the culture of Ferrari, both as an automotive brand and from an Italian cultural perspective,’ Newson adds, ‘you really have to get into character.’

The two men have a 30-year friendship, and a love of cars is a shared preoccupation. Often seen at the world’s great concours – Villa d’Este, Pebble Beach, Goodwood, etc., both are noted collectors of classic machines (Newson’s 1934 Bugatti Type 59 won Best of Show at the 2025 International Concours of Elegance in St Moritz). This project is in many ways the culmination of a long personal and professional association.

According to Manzoni, the LoveFrom collaboration has ‘really enriched our approach.’ The Sardinian-born designer, who joined Ferrari as CDO in 2010, describes the Luce as being ‘independent of the design strategies of the [Ferrari] range… this is unico.’ ‘The rest of the range is evolution,’ he continues, ‘we’ve learned a lot, especially in HMI, but we want to keep this car unique.’ Manzoni – nor anyone else – will be drawn on the Luce’s exterior aesthetics. ‘You can imagine the approach [LoveFrom] have used on the exterior,’ he teases, ‘the formal philosophy is the same – very rigorous and very pure.’

The Luce’s interior is fascinating for what it omits as much as much as what it includes. Ive is uncharacteristically blunt in one assessment, telling us that ‘touch doesn’t belong in cars.’ There is touch input, of course, but it’s definitely secondary to the analogue experience. The interior is a defining example of that horrid portmanteau ‘phygital’ (a word which is conspicuously and thankfully absent from any of today’s discussions), a fact that’s all the more interesting coming as it does from one of the preeminent architects of our modern digital lives.

Ive maintains that the distraction-free cockpit of the Luce will ‘save lives’, and it’s hard not to imagine Ferrari’s rivals taking copious notes once they lay eyes on the LoveFrom design. Ferrari itself describes the cabin’s forms and displays as being ‘simplified and rationalised in the service of driving'; it's worth noting that they’re quite a long way from the company’s current interior ethos.

There are some caveats to this blanket anti-screen statement, not least the auto industry’s billion-dollar push towards autonomy. San Francisco is the home of Waymo and the company's LiDAR-encrusted Jaguar I-Paces are a common sight on its streets. It’s one area where the distraction of more screens might be welcome, although a self-driving Ferrari is perhaps even more heretical than an electric one.

Flavio Manzoni acknowledges that the Luce is not designed for traditional Ferrari customers, rather those who are new to the brand and perhaps more taken with the tech and luxury backgrounds of Ive and Newson than with Ferrari’s 79-year history of sports car manufacturing. It could even be more appealing to women, traditionally underrepresented in Ferrari’s customer base (although younger markets like China have a more equitable female/male ratio than the West).

The Luce interior has a clarity of execution and function that few other car companies can currently muster, if they ever could. By avoiding the overt reliance on giant touchscreens and by amplifying the importance of touch and feel, the Luce is taking its own path, parlaying the importance of a true analogue physicality to the spirit and emotion of driving.

Stage two of the Luce reveal certainly corroborates Elkann’s intention to avoid the industry’s existing dogma. As Newson says, ‘we were approached as an outside entity, so our approach was going to be different – that was the whole point of the exercise. The fact that it was an EV was an interesting starting point and a welcome and exciting level of newness.’

From the initial research to the final interior, the Luce project is a showcase for LoveFrom’s obsessive, intensive and unashamedly multidisciplinary approach. ‘If you don’t have a very strong philosophy and discipline, it just won’t work,’ Ive says of the project’s vast complexity, working hand in hand with Ferrari’s engineering team, its suppliers, production partners and the reams of legislation that bind the auto industry.

Newson still enthuses that ‘Ferrari are by far and away the best partner we could have,’ strongly implying that the realisation of this detailed and comprehensive brief would simply not be possible anywhere else.

Ferrari.com, LoveFrom.com

Read our May 2026 report from the full Ferrari Luce reveal in Rome

Marc Newson had been aware of Ressence, the Belgian watch brand founded in 2010 by industrial designer Benoît Mintiens, since its early days. ‘It’s not easy in the watch world to create something truly new and innovative – but Benoît did,’ says Newson. ‘For me, his very first watch was reminiscent of some of the work that I’d been doing at Ikepod [the watch brand Newson co-founded in 1994], and it was very welcome. I was really happy to see what he’d done – it felt like a lovely evolution.’

Since Ressence’s inception, Mintiens has established a distinctive aesthetic for his brand, focusing on a pure design that eschews the superfluous and rethinks the essentials, including the way we tell the time. ‘As an industrial designer, it’s your job to reconsider and challenge situations that have always been there,’ says Mintiens. ‘What is special about what we do is that we put functionality back on the agenda.’

Newson’s decision to collaborate with Ressence was a natural one, with the resulting watch, the Type 3 MN, drawing on the brand’s patented oil-filled technological inner workings and Newson’s stripped-back industrial design philosophy. Ressence’s patented mechanism of magnetically driven rotating discs, a cornerstone of the brand since its inception, offers a visually arresting and unique display. Inside the watch case, the upper chamber is filled with silicon oil, which puts a stop to any light refraction and ensures exceptional readability.

The watch’s ergonomic, elliptical silhouette is one that Newson has refined over the years, and nods back to early Ikepod versions. The designer was keen to build on this history. ‘What Benoît had developed at Ressence was a perfect vehicle for me to express a lot of the ideas I had wanted to do early on – and to an extent that I did do, but not, perhaps, to the extent that I wanted to, as we didn’t really have the technology that better enabled its expression. So it was an odd kind of serendipitous meeting of minds.’

Subtle touches of colour throughout lend a vivid clarity. In the muted palette, Newson is referencing the 1998 Hemipode watch – one of his favourite designs for Ikepod, he says – and here its combination of greys and yellows is faithfully rendered. ‘I love this green, too,’ he adds. ‘I’ve used it constantly throughout my career. I call it the colour of the universe.'

Reflecting on what characterised the creation process, Mintiens says, ‘Functionality is at the core of what an industrial designer does; the simpler you make something, the more functional it becomes. So the whole idea behind it was to simplify, even though Marc wanted the graphical execution to have this instrument feel to it. I wanted it to feel like what would come after Ikepod – what would be the next generation if we had gone further with it? There is some evolution theory in this, but I think this is the next iteration of Marc’s vision of what a wristwatch should look like.’

Newson enjoyed the process. ‘We share a common interest. You could say Benoît’s day job is timepieces, but he has a thorough understanding of industrial design, whereas my day job is industrial design and I have a thorough understanding of timepieces. It’s reciprocally sympathetic. Working with him was easy because we share the same values, sense of detail and obsession with perfection. It was sort of a geeky watch thing.’

The Type 3 MN watch, CHF46,000 (£49,858), will be available in a limited-edition run of 80 from 4 December, ressencewatches.com, marc-newson.com

This article appears in the January 2026 Issue of Wallpaper* , available from 4 December in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News + Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

This year, Zara turns 50, and to celebrate, the Spanish company enlisted as many creative friends as its years in business. Each creative was asked to create a piece that would encapsulate the spirit of Zara, and the group spans different creative fields that reflect the company's evolution over the past five decades, from a fashion retailer to a leading lifestyle brand. You can now shop the limited edition collection in full via zara.com.

The list of people (which coincidentally are also the names for the perfect birthday party guestlist) includes Rosalia, Es Devlin, Marc Newson, Alexandre De Betak, Naomi Campbell, Nick Knight, Pat McGrath and Vincent Van Duysen, among many more. The eclectic collection (available from 6 October 2025) features fashion, accessories, furniture and design objects, all united by a desire to celebrate Zara.

The fifty objects will be unveiled this week at a dedicated pop-up in Paris, and all proceeds from the collection will be donated to non-profit organisation Women's Earth Alliance, whose mission is to protect our environment by empowering women's leadership. Zara will match the donation, while also donating 20,000 euros to 50 charitable organisations chosen by the participating artists.

With great freedom granted to each creative for its tribute, the objects in the collection give us a great glimpse into their personal universe. Pierpaolo Piccioli's hot pink surfboard, Luca Guadagnino's dog-embroidered jumper, Sarah Andelman's book holder, Christy Thurlington's luggage are as unexpected and bold as they are intimate.

'I’ve learned that when I attempt to fill a void with art, I’m really encircling the void with practice, participation, and love,' Es Devlin told us of her concrete lamp, defined by a series of layers of materials around an empty core.

In its five decades, Zara has demonstrated its ability to speak different creative languages, adapting them to its accessible fashion and design approach. Recent collaborations with the likes of Samuel Ross, Guido Palau, Collagerie and Vincent Van Duysen are a testament to the company's wide reach.

Van Duysen in particular has collaborated on a wide interiors collection presented over the past few years, which distilled the designer's visual codes into new furniture and object designs. 'It gave me the opportunity to reflect on who I am – not only as a person but also as an architect and as a designer,' he told Wallpaper* at the time.

For the anniversary, he created a glass vessel whose starting point was 'the sensuality and femininity expressed through its continuous lines,' he told us. 'As you move around the piece, it reveals ever-changing textures and perspectives, much like life itself. This work is also a tribute to the excellence of Spanish craftsmanship: a celebration of singular pieces, each with its own distinct character. No two alike.'

Meanwhile, Bureau Betak founder Alexandre de Betak created a pyramid-shaped lamp: 'pyramids and moving lights have always been obsessions—from album covers of The Cure, Pink Floyd, and Earth, Wind & Fire since a kid, to elaborate light-and-buzzer contraptions guarding my teenage bedroom, all mixed with chic Gabriella Crespi–inspired brass dream objects of the time.'

'Zara’s wonderfully global reach and reputation for quality design has made for a hugely enjoyable collaboration,' adds Marc Newson, who created a set of colourful glasses. 'Here, as is often my way, I wanted to toy with material limits and expectations. These luminous glass tumblers exploit colour as a solid entity: we assume glass will carry a degree of translucence, but here the opposite is true. The result is a joyful and functional collection; pops of colour on your kitchen table.'

The anniversary collection is unveiled through a week-long pop-up during Paris Fashion Week, with an exhibition space curated by Sarah Andelman, which will include a bespoke soundtrack by Michel Gaubert and a café by We Are Ona, as well as a series of talks moderated by Derek Blasberg.

'It is an honour that these artists have chosen to mark our birthday with us in this way,' says Marta Ortega Pérez, Nonexecutive Chair of Inditex. 'Each is a leader of their field, in terms of imagination, innovation and integrity. They share the same passions as Zara have since the beginning: quality of craft and the joy of design.'

The anniversary collection is now available from zara.com

Marc Newson is that rare beast, a rock star of a designer who has infused a diverse catalogue of objects with a unique sense of personality, using an approach that is both instantly identifiable yet often unexpected. You know it’s a Newson, somehow. Ever since his earliest furniture projects, the lively, neo-pop aluminium furniture that spliced postmodern playfulness with 1990s bling and the nascent digital sampling culture, his work has taken flight, often in very literal ways. Thrillingly, 40 years of his process, experimentation and innovation is presented in a handsome new XXL volume, Marc Newson: 84-24, written by Alison Castle and published by Taschen. 

Marc Newson: 84-24 published by Taschen

As Castle notes, Newson is largely self-taught, parlaying early learning experiences in the jewellery workshop at Sydney College of the Arts into ever larger pieces as he continues to seek out new ways of making the forms he conjures up in his head. In the beginning, this led to a strange hybridisation of method and intent, with industrial-looking pieces, like the aluminium ‘LC1’ lounger from 1984, belying their labour-intensive, highly crafted construction. 

The extent of this labour put early Newson pieces squarely in the realm of design art, a newly emerged category that raised the stakes – and the budgets – of the modern furniture scene. The ‘Lockheed Lounge’ chair (1988) was the apotheosis of this phase, with its sibling, the ‘Embryo’ chair (1988), representing the moment his aesthetic was transferred into a more production-friendly and reproduceable form. 

As Newson’s status grew, collaborations with furniture makers enabled his designs to become more widely available. Cappellini, Moroso and B&B Italia have all produced his distinctive designs, often existing alongside Marc Newson Editions that have a more bespoke and crafted finish. The book also charts the creation of Ikepod, the watch brand developed with Oliver Ike. Newson oversaw six influential watch models between 1996-2008, before taking this knowledge to Apple, at the invitation of his friend and frequent collaborator Jony Ive, to work on the Apple Watch. Since 2019, he has been in partnership with Ive in the creative agency LoveFrom. 

Newson’s interests in technology and transportation are also made abundantly clear, as he got the opportunity to work closely with the manufacturers he admired the most, designing everything from cameras and surfboards to airlines and bicycles. Along the way there have been several notable collaborations with publishers Taschen, like the mighty Lunar Rock edition of Norman Mailer’s MoonFire: The Epic Journey of Apollo 11, inspired by the design of the Eagle lunar module. 

Inevitably, Newson’s mastery of multiple disciplines has resulted in the ultimate in ostentatious commissions, the superyacht, with two examples – one finished, one nearing completion – featured in 84-24. The book provides a rare insight into Solaris and Nausicaä, built by Lloyd Werft and Lürssen respectively. Such projects satisfy the designer’s appreciation of craftsmanship and technology in a way unlike any other. ‘It’s architecture built by watchmakers. It really is that level,’ says Newson. 

84-24 covers four decades of evolution, chronicling an oeuvre that demonstrates a love for all things mechanical and futuristic coupled with an appreciation for softer forms and materials, often struck through with bold pops of colour. From the 1990s onwards, the consistency and quality that Newson has brought to every project has given everything a timeless feel, not mired in passing aesthetic fads or materials trends. This is evident throughout the book. 

Although only the first few projects are presented chronologically, the rest are arranged by genre. However, the visual index at the back of the book sets out the Newson portfolio in date order. Despite working across a number of fast-moving technological sectors, using new materials and processes as they become available, you would be hard-pressed to categorise any of them as being representative of a particular decade.
 

The term ‘retro-futuristic’ is often abused, thrown about as shorthand for design that embodies a nostalgic, almost conservative, vision of tomorrow. Many of Newson’s most notable projects have been strictly conceptual, such as the Kelvin 40 aircraft (2004) and Ford 021C concept car (1999). Each is timeless in form and entirely credible, although on a purely practical level they could never have been made to work as mass-produced objects at the time. In lesser hands, such a brief would result in something cartoonish and instantly dateable, yet both still appear box-fresh and believable. 

Taschen’s mighty format does justice to Newson’s tireless attention to detail, and Castle’s bold claim that Newson ‘needs no introduction’ is most probably correct. For collectors of design and chroniclers of culture, 84-24 is an essential catalogue raisonné of one of the most extraordinary careers in the history of design. 

‘Marc Newson Works 84-24’, £150; ‘Marc Newson Works 84-24: Art Edition’ (edition of 100, in leather box with signed print), price on request, both published by Taschen 

Available from Amazon

2024 marks the 75th anniversary of Swarovski Optik and the company is starting the year with a world first. The new Swarovski Optik AX Visio binoculars come equipped with a wildlife-focused artificial intelligence system that can tell you exactly what you’re looking at. 

Developed in collaboration with Marc Newson, the AX Visio has taken five years to develop, involving the integration of 390 hardware parts, including Swarovski’s precision 10x32 optic systems (10x magnification and an objective lens diameter of 32mm). This is spliced with in-lens system capable of identifying over 9,000 birds as well as a host of other creatures. 

Swarovski Optik AX Visio binoculars with inbuilt camera

The binoculars have an in-built camera for taking images and videos, as well as a dedicated app for sharing these to your smartphone. You can even tag the location of a bird and guide another AX Visio user to the precise spot via arrows that are overlaid on the display.

Binoculars represent the most ergonomic product you can imagine, a form factor that has to accommodate a huge variety of user shapes and sizes. Newson shaped the AX Visio’s housing, and his signature approach to product design is very much in evidence.

Cleanly styled, with a form that accommodates and conceals the inner workings in favour of a smooth, precisely rendered functionalism, AX Visio is the second product created by the designer for the Austrian company, following on from the pocket-sized CL Curio from 2021.

Stefan Schwarz, Swarovski Optik’s CEO, describes the project as the culmination of the company’s ‘deep understanding of our consumers’ requirements in the birdwatching, and outdoor target groups… The AX Visio is not only a flagship project with which we are demonstrating Swarovski Optik’s technological leadership in the sport optics market, but it also marks the beginning of a new technological era for us.’

Swarovski Optik AX Visio, £3,820, SwarovskiOptic.com

Marc-Newson.com

Direct from the fighting rings of Japan, female wrestling league Sukeban took over Miami’s Lot 11 Skatepark for one night only during Miami Art Week 2023 to crown its first-ever World Champion. Equipped with visually explosive costumes and equally fierce moves, the debut was an epic event and a feast for hungry fashion eyes, and a winner in the Wallpaper* Design Awards 2024. 

Sukeban female wrestling meets design in Miami

Because superheroes deserve the best, the victor was awarded a championship belt specially designed by industrial design legend Marc Newson, in collaboration with acclaimed Japanese illustrator Ayako Ishiguro. The belt is constructed by Newson with white leather, gold studs, and a central plate using the cloisonné technique to best demonstrate Ishiguro’s graphic work. 

The artist’s illustration, taken from seminal moments in wrestling history, features a series of combative scenes surrounded by the claws of a blue dragon and Siamese crocodiles – it’s a mythical artwork reminiscent of Hieronymus Bosch’s depiction of hell.

Although this group of dames may seem like joyful animé dolls at first glance, they are anything but tame. Sukeban, meaning ‘delinquent girl' in Japanese, is an ode to the girl gangs of the 1960s and 1970s. According to Olympia Le-Tan, a fashion designer and the league’s creative director, the importance of projecting each wrestler’s personality and character through their costume was crucial. ‘We want them to feel and look like the superheroes that they are. Tough but also fun,' affirms Le-Tan. Their hats have been created by the world’s best milliner, Stephen Jones.

Amongst the wrestlers, there’s karate black belt ‘Stray Cat’ masked in black latex; elegant ‘Lady Antoinette’ from Hiroshima, carrying a rambunctious headpiece and known for her edgy ‘Guillotin’ signature move; and monochrome ‘Bingo’, stencilled in black and white diamond patterns twirling with a heavy chain. 

Each of the women and their units – Cherry Bomb Girls, Dangerous Liaisons, The Vandals, and Harajuku Stars – were part of this unconventional encounter, with eyes on the final prize. Hosted by actor and style legend Kunichi Nomura, it was an evening of quality art, design and pop culture, with just a hint of insanity.

The event took place 6 December 2023. Lot 11 Skatepark, Downtown Miami

sukeban.com

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

Fliteboard is an Australian company that has revolutionised the art and practice of surfing. Founded in 2016 by David Trewern and based in Byron Bay, New South Wales, the company makes motorised hydrofoils. Trewern, a former kite-surfing world record holder, wanted to create a board that used the hydrofoil capabilities of a kite surf foil board without the need for any wind.

When pulled by a kite, a foil board lifts itself out the water, leaving just a winged hydrofoil beneath the surface, attached by a slender carbon-fibre arm. This drastically reduces the amount of drag on the board, increasing speed and manoeuvrability. Trewern’s innovation was to add an electric motor to the hydrofoil, propelling the board forwards in order to generate lift.

One of the company’s dedicated followers is the industrial designer Marc Newson. ‘I’m a fan,’ says Newson. ‘I became aware of them about four years ago and started using one about three years ago. I then got friendly with David. He knew me and my work, especially the marine projects.’ 

For Trewern, Newson’s interest sparked an excellent opportunity. ‘Fliteboard combines many advanced technologies that culminate in a magical riding experience,’ he says. ‘Such a product deserves a poetic design approach at the pinnacle of art and science, and there is no one better to provide this than Marc – one of my long-time design heroes.’

Trewern invited Newson to collaborate. ‘Being a consumer is a good thing,’ the designer muses. ‘It gives you a good insight into a product. It’s happened before – I’ve liked a product enough to want to work on it.’ 

The work with Fliteboard posed more than a few challenges. ‘It was an interesting one, because it’s not just an intellectual interaction but a physical one,’ Newson says. ‘It was also an education I had to give myself. It helps to have done a bit of surfing, windsurfing, snowboarding, even riding a bike,’ he continues, ‘but in many ways [using a Fliteboard] is a very particular discipline – it was an advantage to have that muscle memory.’

Riding a Fliteboard is all about balance. ‘Minute movements have a big impact,’ Newson says. ‘It’s a bit like a unicycle, perhaps, in that you’re balanced on a mast that is projecting up out of the water and you have a full 360-degrees of balance to deal with. Also, your eye level is 8ft or so out of the water, which feels quite daunting.’ 

The silence of the electric propulsion unit (on the flagship board you can swap between the Flite Jet system or the Flite Propeller) makes the experience calm and serene. ‘It feels virtuous, not obnoxious like a JetSki,’ Newson says. The designer’s innovations, which resulted in the Fliteboard x Marc Newson shown here, were developed in close collaboration with Trewern and his team. 

For a start, the new boards were narrowed, improving performance. Newson also redesigned the removable Flitecell batteries, shaping new orange anodized titanium designs. In addition, there are detachable front wings to change the ride characteristics, as well as a brand new Flite Controller, the vital wireless connection that gives the rider control over the board. ‘It’s a curious interface,’ Newson says. ‘There has to be a very high degree of legibility, but it’s also very intuitive, because for the most part, you’re really not looking at it – it’s an extension of your hand.’ 

Operated by a trigger, the controller shows speed and battery life, along with wave data, on a circular screen. Newson admits that this gives the controller a ‘slightly analogue flavour’, but that also aligns with his fascination with all things nautical. As well as being more ergonomically efficient, the controller has to be fully marine grade – water- and impact-resistant. 

The Fliteboard x Marc Newson eFoil incorporates other innovations. ‘In collaboration with Fliteboard, we came up with a carbon-fibre mast that’s much more streamlined,’ says Newson, ‘both in terms of function and manufacturing.’ The inherent flexibility of swappable propulsion methods and different wing attachments allows for different riding styles; in waves, you need power to get to the wave, before using momentum to ride it, whereas on calm seas, you need power all the time. 

For Newson, one of the driving forces behind the project was the current advanced state of composite technology and manufacturing. ‘One could liken this to the Formula 1 version of the eFoil,’ he continues. ‘It’s almost entirely made of carbon fibre, which enables the primary components to be moulded as a single entity.’ The battery itself is contained within the board, easily removable with flush-mounted silicon handles. 

Noting that the idea of the hydrofoil is a ‘relatively old technology, with not much changed since the 1960s’, the designer thinks the field is still open for exploration. ‘You can’t just jump on board a Fliteboard,’ Newson notes. ‘It takes a couple of days to get the hang of it. I’d like to see a recumbent design, perhaps. There’s definitely a lot more that can be done.’ 

Fliteboard x Marc Newson available in two sizes, Fliteboard 60 (4ft 6in), and Fliteboard 85 (5ft 4in), EU.Fliteboard.com

In its short existence, Sir Jony Ive’s studio, LoveFrom, has demonstrated that it is prepared to go above and beyond in its creative endeavours. Bringing together designers, architects, musicians, filmmakers, writers, engineers and artists, LoveFrom is based out of San Francisco and London. 

Early work includes the Terra Carta Seal, and ongoing work with Ferrari, as well as the announcement of a series of scholarships at CCA and RISD in the US, and London’s RCA. 

Before any of that work had been announced, Ive and his key collaborators, Marc Newson and Peter Saville, set to work on shaping LoveFrom’s identity. Working with Chris Wilson, former head of UI design at Apple (and an old university friend of Ive), engineer Patch Kessler and Milan-based typographer Antonio Cavedoni, the team began a multi-year design and research project.

The making of LoveFrom, Serif

Jony Ive: Marc and I started a conversation with Peter, who became a part of LoveFrom. He had a really lovely sense of [how to use] our identity, which wasn’t to constrain it with a traditional logotype, but to use it in order to invite a dialogue.

Peter Saville: My most active contribution came when Jony asked me what the LoveFrom logotype should be. I was actually really surprised they’d managed to register ‘LoveFrom’ as almost every combination of words has been taken.

Starting back in autumn 2019, the initial discussions were about the words themselves, and how they should be presented. 

Peter Saville: Jony asked me about how it should look. It was difficult at the beginning because of the familiarity of these two words, ‘love’ and ‘from’. I initially thought it should be in a modest typeface, maybe a neutral sans serif. However, the most significant thing I contributed was the comma. This gives the words a sincerity and places them on one side of a dialogue. It performs this kind of inclusive act. 

Jony Ive: Peter’s insight was that LoveFrom’s approach could be defined by the comma in the logotype. Chris and Antonio’s work on our website makes it very clear how that works in practice. 

One of the first jumping-off points for the project was a Saville-designed album cover. The 1981 album by Blackpool band Section 25, Always Now, featured a full-bleed typographic composition set in Bembo. 

Peter Saville: I knew that cover had made a big impact on Jony. The idea of using a comma was very well received by the team, so from that point on it became a question of typography. I’m not familiar with many logotypes that have commas in them. Full stops, yes. 

Jony Ive: The first typefaces we looked at weren’t crafted in a way that satisfied our creative nature. We started with Bembo before looking at Baskerville and then realised that we’d never find something that we totally loved, so why [not] develop one for ourselves?

LoveFrom, Serif was born. Its first official public outing was on the LoveFrom website, and its first appearance in print in the recent limited-edition Steve Jobs book, Make Something Wonderful; the typeface is also used in the Terra Carta Seal and the LoveFrom design for the official emblem of the Coronation of King Charles III. Years in the making, the effortless simplicity of the letterforms belies a hugely complex, long-winded process. 

Marc Newson: It struck me at the outset as a really curious endeavour – when you really manipulate and play with fonts. Fonts are really, really technical things. Even being a graphic designer doesn’t entitle you to understand typesetting. It’s an old-school preoccupation. 

Peter Saville: When Chris, Patch and Antonio came on board, it moved from Bembo to Baskerville. At which point I just sat back in wonder and admired their attention to detail. They have delivered their own extraordinary iteration of it. For the last 30 years at least there’s been a remarkable enthusiasm for typography. It didn’t used to be that way. Typography was once seen as boring. When I was at college, I remember falling asleep in the type-setting room. 

Marc Newson: Typography is a very analogue medium – a true craft. Jony and I find that craft compelling. Some might perceive it as anachronistic to even think about fonts. But that’s OK, because we love to do things that maybe other people don’t. It was a very conscious decision to focus on typography and have people like Chris and Antonio on board and give them these opportunities.

There are many reasons why John Baskerville’s eponymous typeface attracted the LoveFrom team. Baskerville (1707-1775) was an artistic and creative pioneer in many spheres, from paper-making to printing. Throughout his life, he printed numerous books, with a quality and simplicity of presentation that looked forward to the modern era. The original punches used for his most celebrated typeface are remarkable survivors, now in the care of Cambridge University. 

Cavedoni already owned a collection of antiquarian volumes set in Baskerville, whilst Robin Hull at Cambridge took exquisite macro photographs of these precise, tiny steel punches, with some letters just 1mm tall. Cavedoni, whose typographic credits include designing Apple’s seminal San Francisco font, describes Hull’s images as ‘an enormous breakthrough’. They revealed the shapes and eccentricities of the typeface in meticulous detail. 

Chris Wilson: A lot of people do custom typefaces these days just for the sake of it. We didn’t want to jump on this bandwagon. My intuition was that Baskerville felt like the right balance. There was a really interesting synergy with modern design throughout its history. I also quite enjoy the constraints.  

Antonio Cavedoni: [John] Baskerville was always in search of perfection. He talked at length about his love of letterforms. He was someone who made everything – the press, the ink, the paper, and of course the original punches for all the different sizes of type. His almost obstinate preoccupation with getting it right was very attractive. 

Jony Ive: I consider myself fairly ignorant of typography. But even though I don’t have Antonio’s exhaustive knowledge, I was still drawn to this beautiful face. Our approach was one of respect and reverence to Baskerville’s work. 

The long research and development process, which occupied Cavedoni and Wilson throughout the Covid lockdown, involved drafting and redrafting endless subtle variations of John Baskerville’s forms. As well as the printed page, Cavedoni researched slate letters cut by Baskerville, in addition to contemporary lettering manuals and the work of the typographer’s peers. 

LoveFrom, Serif is supremely flexible. The project included working on very light and very heavy iterations of the font, styles that simply wouldn’t have existed in the 18th century. Then there were numbers to design (John Baskerville only used old-style numerals), as well as italic weights, which have a flatter, more two-dimensional character. A  set of alternate shapes for many characters was also created, taking advantage of Baskerville’s different iterations of forms like the ‘R’, and ‘Q’. 

The typeface is optically sized – depending on the point size, the space between letters is dynamically adjusted to deal with different print quality or monitor resolution. There’s also a complex algorithmic approach to the curves, that blends them seamlessly into the straight lines of the descenders. 

Patch Kessler: At Apple, we spent a lot of time on curves to get things just right on things like the app tiles. It’s the same principal here, just massively more complicated, involving math, optics, and geometry. 

Marc Newson: Continuous curvature is a new concept to implement in type, the sort of thing that would once have required a super-computer. It’s a very compelling way to explore digital technology in a craft-based sense. You don’t often get examples where the two can harmoniously benefit each other.

Jony Ive: These forms are so extraordinarily beautiful, so pure, with a serenity and fluidity. The typeface was intended to be scalable and useful in many different manifestations, particularly digitally. We also wanted to share it for special collaborations, some of which I can’t talk about. 

Chris Wilson: There’s so much we can do when expressing it in the digital world. It’s something you can’t do with an off-the-shelf product.

Antonio Cavedoni: The typeface can be a platform for making bespoke pieces of lettering.

Jony Ive: I’ve always felt really strongly that you hope a design solution gets to the point where it doesn’t feel like there’s any other alternative. And that there’s no sense of a designer wagging their tail in your face.

Another early, under the radar outing for LoveFrom, Serif was in a self-published memorial book for Richard Rogers’ final project at Château La Coste, a project undertaken to ‘honour a dear friend’, according to Ive. Work is also apace to design a complementary sans serif (no prizes for guessing the name), all part of Ive’s desire to give LoveFrom the ultimate bespoke tool kit. 

Jony Ive: At its heart LoveFrom is about gathering together experts, people who are pre-eminent in their various fields. The tools we use as creatives tend to establish and reinforce the differences in our practice, not the similarities. When you make things with love and care you express your gratitude to humanity, to our species.

Peter Saville: In a way, I made my contribution 40 years ago when I realised that typography triggers certain contextual and cultural associations. I saw how it could be very evocative in creating a certain gravitas as well as a sense of cultural significance. I think pop culture in the 1980s turned a young generation on to type. But it’s also something that either works or it doesn’t.  

Marc Newson: On a project like this, we can spend as much time as we want – we are the client. Luxury is the wrong word, but we don’t often have this kind of opportunity in our line of work. There’s always space, not necessarily to improve, but to refine something. It’s simply about the detail. 

Peter Saville: Jony has that obsessive mania for everything – he’s very particular. You can obviously see that in his work for Apple. It results in extraordinary things. His approach is to say, ‘Let’s do it until there’s no more that can be done.’ LoveFrom, Serif evokes art and craftsmanship, values that Jony wanted to associate with LoveFrom. 

Jony Ive: Designers often talk about how we work, but not why. Our name describes our motivation, which is to be in service of humanity. It’s great to have a motivation of that gravity. LoveFrom, Serif speaks perfectly to our collective approach and to our experience. It has its basis in the physical world – via the original steel punches – and it has its final manifestation in the digital space. I can’t think of a better first product.

LoveFrom.com

The celebrated Tokyo Toilet project offered prolific designer Marc Newson his first opportunity to create a public facility. It might not come as a surprise that this relatively niche request came from Japan, a country famous and, some might say even obsessed, with its loos. Newson was asked to design a public toilet in the Shibuya ward as part of an initiative launched by the city and the Japan Foundation to revamp 17 of Tokyo’s public toilets, which were badly in need of a makeover. He joins an impressive line-up of mostly Japanese architecture and design professionals, such as Shigeru Ban, Tadao Ando, Kengo Kuma and Sou Fujimoto.

Tokyo Toilet: a design by Marc Newson

The location for Newson’s toilet couldn’t be more quintessentially 'Tokyo' – tucked away below the Tokyo Metropolitan Highway in a tight spot between two roads. The exterior offers nods to traditional Japanese architecture, such as a copper Minoko roof and a natural stone foundation. The walls are made of poured concrete giving the toilet a distinct modern look.

Inside, however, the toilet looks distinctly futuristic – almost like the inside of a UFO or spaceship. The walls, ceiling and floor are all kept in the same blue-green shade and have been illuminated by indirect lighting at the junction between the ceiling and the walls, creating a bright and pleasant environment. Meanwhile, a state-of-the-art Toto toilet provides the necessary equipment for a comfortable experience. 

Tokyo Toilet: the full list of designs

Designers from across the country, as well as abroad, have contributed to the Tokyo Toilet project since its inception in 2020. Contributors so far include Tadao Ando, Toyo Ito, Tomohito Ushiro, Masamichi Katayama, Kengo Kuma, Junko Kobayashi, Takenosuke Sakakura, Kashiwa Sato, Kazoo Sato, Nao Tamura, Nigo, Marc Newson, Shigeru Ban (who has designed two), and Fumihiko Maki. More contributions, by Sou Fujimoto and Miles Pennington, are currently underway, with the next instalment set to launch in spring. 

tokyotoilet.jp 

marc-newson.com 

Gagosian presents the first solo exhibition in Greece of British designer Marc Newson’s work (until 7 January 2023). Imbued with joyful optimism, the all-blue collection of furniture on display pays homage to Greece, with a monochromatic palette that plays with materials and techniques. 

‘Greece and Greek culture have always been close to my heart, and it’s an honour to share these works in Athens,’ says Newson. 

Among the pieces on display are Newson’s ‘Cloisonné’ chair and lounger, replicated in blue and white with a molecular patterned motif. To create them, Newson used the ancient technique of cloisonné, which gives the name to the pieces, which involves applying fine enamel tiles to the surface – a method typically used for jewellery and small decorative objects. 

To create the large-scale pieces, Newson collaborated with a specialist craftsperson in Beijing, who first created the copper wire surface, inlaid enamel into the design, and finally fired each piece up to 12 times in custom-made kilns.

Also on display are pieces such as the ‘Blue Glass Coffee Table’ and accompanying chair, combining solid forms of coloured and clear cast glass to create the furniture pieces, and the ‘Murrina Table’, first presented in different colourways with Gagosian in 2019 and here replicated in white and blue. 

To create these pieces, Newson once again took a technique generally used on a small scale (the murrine originating in 16th-century Venice) and blew it up to create striking furniture pieces.

Working in marble, Newson chose Azul Macaubas stone for a new rendition of his ‘Extruded Console’ to match the exhibition theme. Carved from a single piece of marble as a silhouette of a furniture piece, the design’s dynamic approach blurs the boundaries between two-dimensional forms and three-dimensional functionality. 

Moving beyond furniture design, the exhibition also includes Newson’s surfboard designs, originally created as prototypes for surfer Garrett McNamara, and his ‘Blue Hourglass’, made in Basel and handblown from a single piece of borosilicate glass, then filled with blue steel nanoballs, engineered by Swiss watch manufacturer De Bethune.

Marc Newson is on display at Gagosian Athens until 7 January 2023

22 Anapiron Polemou Street
Athens 11521

marc-newson.com
gagosian.com

LoveFrom, the creative collective founded by Jony Ive which includes his long-time collaborator Marc Newson, has unveiled its website, LoveFrom.com. The launch marks the most public move to date by the collective, which has worked quietly since its founding in 2019 and only made general announcements of collaborations with Apple, Airbnb and Ferrari.

LoveFrom.com went live today, 11 October 2021 at noon Pacific time, revealing a visual identity designed by members of the team including Ive, legendary art director Peter Saville, and Chris Wilson and Antonio Cavedoni, both former members of the Apple design team. The site is as intriguing as it is declarative, opening with a simple wordmark, and followed by a brief text described as ‘a concise and finely crafted definition of the LoveFrom collective and its work’.

LoveFrom Serif – an expression of the collective’s identity

Both the wordmark and ensuing text are set in a new typeface, LoveFrom Serif, which is inspired by John Baskerville’s letterforms and based on studies of his original punches and matrices. From this basis, the design team created an expanded type family with flexible, scalable digital faces in multiple weights and optical sizes. ‘Each character has been lovingly redrawn, refined and meticulously crafted over the past two years,’ explains the collective in an accompanying press release. 

Within the wordmark, the ‘LoveFrom’ name is given an additional flourish by a comma, a move that Saville describes as initiating a dialogue and shared conversation. In its animated version, a text cursor blinks as the eight letters of ‘LoveFrom’ appear to be typed out. The comma then appears, rotating, rolling around, transforming and bouncing atop the other letterforms before it finally settles into place. 

LoveFrom.com – a statement of purpose

The text opens with familiar lines: ‘LoveFrom is a creative collective. We are designers, architects, musicians, filmmakers, writers, engineers and artists.’ It acknowledges that the viewer may already know LoveFrom by its members’ past work, and then offers a statement of purpose: 

Further down is the line ‘We work on projects for joy’, echoing a sentiment shared by Ive and Apple’s former chairman, CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs. In a remembrance first published by WSJ Magazine a week ago, on the tenth anniversary of Jobs’ death, Ive wrote: ‘He truly believed that by making something great for people, something empowering, beautiful and culturally significant, we express our gratitude and our love for humanity.’ Both the LoveFrom name and the timings of today’s website launch are an homage to Jobs, and an indication of the creativity, collaborative spirit and generosity he continues to inspire. 

The collective adds, ‘We look forward to continuing the conversation about our work, our team and our creative process.’

The animated LoveFrom wordmark features a comma that rotates, rolls around, transforms and bounces atop the other letterforms before it finally settles into place. Peter Saville describes this typographic flourish as initiating a dialogue and shared conversation.

INFORMATION

LoveFrom.com

Jony Ive and Marc Newson gear up with Ferrari

Jony Ive and Marc Newson of creative collective LoveFrom are joining forces with Exor, Ferrari’s holding company, for a long-term, multi-year partnership.

According to Exor’s announcement, released on 27 September 2021, ‘the first expression of this new partnership will bring together Ferrari's legendary performance and excellence, with LoveFrom’s unrivalled experience and creativity that has defined extraordinary world-changing products’. 

The partnership represents LoveFrom’s first major project beyond Silicon Valley, a highly anticipated move from the creative collective. Comprising designers, architects, musicians, filmmakers, writers, engineers and artists, LoveFrom was founded in 2019 after Ive left the chief design officer role at Apple. It maintains a close relationship with Apple (its first customer), and began to work with Airbnb last year to design the sharing economy platform’s next generation of goods and services.

Jony Ive and Marc Newson gear up with Ferrari

Says John Elkann, chairman and chief executive of Exor and chairman of Ferrari: ‘Soon after LoveFrom was founded, we began to talk with Jony and Marc about opportunities to combine their world-renowned creativity with ours in complementary and incremental ways. Ferrari represents a first exciting chance to do great things together as we build our future.’

Ferrari had previously confirmed that it would launch its first all-electric car in 2025, anticipating the European Union’s effective ban on new fossil-fuel cars from 2035 – so LoveFrom is poised to make its mark on the luxury carmaker at a historic moment.

Add Ive and Newson: ‘As Ferrari owners and collectors, we could not be more excited about collaborating with this extraordinary company, and in particular with the design team, expertly led by Flavio Manzoni. We see some uniquely exciting opportunities of working together.’

The Ferrari partnership follows a flurry of high-profile design collaborations by the carmaker. In 2017, it celebrated its 70th anniversary with a blockbuster exhibition ‘Under the Skin’, with 3D design by Patricia Urquiola; while the following year saw the publication of a monograph, published by Taschen and enclosed in an aluminium engine-inspired case designed by Newson. An ambitious brand diversification project rolled out earlier this year, with a fashion collection overseen by Rocco Iannone, formerly of Pal Zileri, and a new flagship store in Maranello, Italy, by Sybarite.

LoveFrom’s next steps

Beyond the Ferrari collaboration, ‘LoveFrom will explore a range of creative projects with Exor in the business of luxury’, says the announcement, fuelling speculation about next steps. Other brands in the Exor portfolio include Italian football team Juventus, Italian media conglomerate Gedi, Chinese luxury fashion label Shang Xia, and Britain’s The Economist Group; collectively they could offer a wide range of possibilities for design innovation.

Exor additionally announced that Ive would join its Partners Council, an annual forum that ‘draws on the experience, expertise and insights of a group of highly successful Exor friends and partners to share ideas and explore potential business opportunities’.

Marc Newson has unveiled a new set of shelves at Galerie Kreo (on view at the gallery until 20 November 2021). ‘Quobus’, a modular shelving design cast in metal and enamel, is open to interpretation, allowing for countless variations. The shelves play on the traditional grid format with an exploration of shapes and patterns, creating spaces of different sizes that can be altered at will, making this piece great as a bookcase design or for displaying objects.

The horizontal and vertical units encompass Newson’s pure design philosophy, staying faithful to the wishes he has noted in the past: ‘

I hope to propose a series of objects, furniture, that is simply effective and aesthetic.’

Encapsulating this simplicity in a range of hues, from soft sorbet to boldly graphic black and white, the pieces juxtapose the curved lines of the silhouette against the structure’s angular form. The cube can be extended or shortened, filled or left empty.

Marc Newson shelves: fun and functional

The design draws on research commissioned by Newson when creating Taschen’s Milan bookstore in 2015. The distinctive cube-like design, then as here, conforms to the need to be both practical and aesthetically pleasing in its own right. When used for its original purpose it disappears, but becomes a sculpture in its own right when left empty.

Space and light are at the heart of the design, while the details are typically carefully considered, with the curved forms of the joins – which encompass gleaming round brass screws – becoming a sensual foil for the grid-like structure of the whole.

The launch of the designs ties in with a new era for Galerie Kreo, which is moving from its former home off London’s Berkeley Square to a larger gallery space in the heart of Mayfair, managed by director Clara Krzentowski. The space will kick off with an inaugural exhibition showcasing new work by Newson, who has presented three major exhibitions at the gallery and worked with the Kreo team for two decades.

INFORMATION

galeriekreo.com

Marc Newson designed London’s Coast restaurant in 1995 and it took London by storm, emphasising contemporary design, art, and culinary innovation. Commissioned by Oliver Peyton, owner of the Atlantic Bar and Grill, to create the interiors for the new Mayfair restaurant, the designer worked in collaboration with Robert Grace Architecture

Marc Newson looks back to the design of Coast restaurant

Newson recently took to Instagram, where he paid tribute to the 1990s design through a series of archive photographs of the space, which closed in 2000. Seen are his clean, harmonious interior, with white walls and floors and curved lines.

Coast offered one of the first opportunities for Newson to design an entire space, right down to the smaller objects. He created seating and tables, as well as smaller items such as ashtrays and pepper grinders. The space – a former Volvo showroom – was developed over two floors and was characterised by an imposing, silo-shaped spiral staircase (coated in the same epoxy resin used on the floor, explains Newson, ‘to create a seamless surface’) with stairs covered in green Tartan Track (a material more often found on athletics tracks). Custom green banquettes, laser-cut oak tiles and pod lighting completed the space, while artist Angela Bulloch created a sound-activated installation.

Marc Newson's products for his 1995 Coast restaurant project

Newson’s Instagram review includes the objects and furniture he designed for the space, several of which were later put into production by furniture and design companies. These include the glass ashtray, originally manufactured by Swedish company Blend and later picked up by Habitat, and the black and white ‘Gemini’ salt and pepper grinders for Alessi, while Venini produced the glassware. The oak chairs for the restaurant were made in a small Italian factory, and the design was later picked up by Magis and reproduced in plastic.

‘I wanted it to feel like a homogenous environment,’ commented Newson as he looked back to the restaurant's design. ‘A bit like being in a swimming pool.’

INFORMATION

marc-newson.com

British designer Marc Newson has built a career taking traditional manufacturing techniques and applying them to create unexpected silhouettes for products ranging from watches to transport. The approach has yielded pioneering works such as the Lockheed Lounge (1986) and the Embryo Chair (1988), tastefully blurring the line between design and art. His latest exhibition is no exception, bringing together colossal cast-glass chairs, Murrina glass consoles, cloisonné enameled desks, aluminium surfboards, and an Aikuchi sword. The show, which opens today at Gagosian in New York City, marks the first showcase of the designer’s work in over a decade.

Wallpaper*: For someone not familiar with your body of work, and the range within it, it this might seem like a pretty eclectic collection of objects.
MN: To someone that is familiar with my work it would seem fairly understandable in the sense that they're all mediums that I've worked through. Take the surfboard; there’s a history there because when I had my first show [with Gagosian] back in 2007, I designed a surfboard in nickel for the exhibition. From that perspective, this show is an evolution of that work. My work deals with the boundary between what we think design is and what we think art might be.

W*: Which comes first, the technique or the concept?
MN: In all of my work I'm always looking for processes and techniques that are completely anachronistic. I love recontextualising these things in a modern time. They're completely old but they're sort of new and nearly impossible. There's never a dull moment – culminating with having to transport an eight-foot-long glass piece from the Czech Republic to the gallery here in New York.

W*: You’ve taken materials that tend to be very delicate or fragile, yet these pieces appear substantial, both in stature and in durability.
MN: All of the techniques that I've utilised are designed to produce desktop-scale objects. By contrast, these are the biggest Murrina glass objects known to exist by an order of magnitude. This cast-glass chair takes six months just to sit in the kiln. It takes three months to heat up to the right temperature and then it takes another three months for the thing to cool down. They're then cut and finished by hand. They're deeply, deeply labour intensive. It took three years to find people that could even begin to understand what I wanted to do. We had to develop the techniques, the factories to build them. We now own a kiln and furnace in the Czech Republic so large that you can fit a car inside it.

W*: Tell us about the sword.
MN: The sword speaks to a significant part of what I do, which is dealing with crafts, in particular, dying crafts from various parts of the world. I was approached by the Japanese government in the wake of the tsunami that hit a handful of years ago. It wiped out part of a region known as Tōhoku that was heavily populated with craftspeople. The government set up a programme to help and, through it, I was paired with a swordsmith they refer to in Japan as a Living National Treasure.

The project took around five years to result in a final product, designed by me and utilising a blade manufactured by this National Living Treasure. I jumped at the opportunity because it's everything I love. In a very real sense, it straddles the border between art and design in very much the same way that the furniture does. It does it in a far more esoteric and profound way from an art and cultural point of view.

INFORMATION

‘Marc Newson’ is on view until 20 February. For more information visit the Gagosian website

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Wallpaper* recently hosted an evening with Montblanc to commemorate the launch of the (Montblanc M) RED, a new writing instrument designed by globally renowned designer Marc Newson to raise funds in the fight against AIDS.

Since launching in 2006 the RED charity, founded by U2 frontman Bono, has generated over $.5bn for the Global Fund by partnering with creative brands such as Montblanc to create extraordinary products and experiences. The aim of RED is to raise awareness and funds to help eliminate HIV/AIDS.

‘Twenty-seven million of the 36m people living with HIV today live in Sub-Saharan Africa, and that’s where the majority of RED funds go towards treatment programmes,’ explained Meaghan Condon, director of partnerships for RED, as she introduced the conversation between Marc Newson and Montblanc’s creative director Zaim Kamal. ‘We have impacted over a 110m lives, but there’s still a lot more work to be done’, she added, ‘so we are incredibly proud to be working with Marc and Montblanc on this incredible collaboration.’

Wallpaper*: Marc, please tell us how you got involved with RED?

Marc Newson: Bono asked Jony Ive and me to curate an auction back in 2013. There had already been one auction before that, in 2008, curated by Damien Hirst, which raised a phenomenal amount of money – $21m or something. So, while Jony and I were obviously proud to be associated with the cause we were also slightly overwhelmed by the fact that Damien had raised so much money.

In the end we managed to raise $44m in a single night. The format was simple: to curate an auction of things that we liked. So, it was a question of identifying the things and approaching the people that manufactured those things, or who were responsible for them, and convincing them that this was a worthwhile cause.

W*: Can you describe some of the objects you chose?

MN: It was a very broad and eclectic. Jony and I wanted to champion certain things that we’d loved throughout our lives. We wanted to curate, customise… and in some cases, even design them from scratch.

We designed a Leica camera for example – and, turned this into a way of generating revenue for RED. [The auction also included a Dieter Rams for Braun hi-fi system, a thermal window from the US space shuttle, a vintage Fiat 500 Jolly in red, a pair of Apple earbuds in rose gold and a Zvedea cosmonaut suit from a 1990 Soviet space agency mission].

I’m not sure we could have raised that much money without Bono who was also the auctioneer, but there were a number of people like him involved – you know, very, very persuasive people. The RED charity has ways and means of exploiting – in the nicest sense of the word – all of the avenues that are available to them.

W*: During your career you have designed many things from a plane and a car to watches and several pairs of sneakers. When you are creating something on the scale of the (Montblanc M)RED fountain pen, how does the design and engineering process differ from a larger project?

MN: There’s really no difference between engineering a pen, or parts of an aeroplane. I did a lot of work on the Qantas A380 aircraft programme and I’m also designing some very, very large yachts at the moment. At the end of the day, it’s just a question of scale. You apply the same logic, methodology, and philosophy to designing a pen as you would anything else.

The wonderful thing about the pen is that, unlike a lot of those things, it is something that I’ve used since the get-go. The pen is the way I transmit my ideas from my head to reality. So when Montblanc gave me the opportunity to design a pen in struck a deep chord. Just the idea of designing a pen for Montblanc, who are arguably the most well-known and brilliant manufacturer of pens in the world – gave me a thrill. If you’re going to design pens for anyone, it really should be with them!

W* Marc talks about the sensory experience of using a pen; Zaim, do you get that same sensation when using a Montblanc?

Zaim Kamal: Using a fountain pen – we call it a ‘writing instrument’ at Montblanc – is a way of making a mark in terms of what you say. It’s basically the touch and feel; it’s something that you don’t think about, but it’s there when you need it. So, the sensory experience is how you hold it, how you touch it, and what it actually communicates.

Wallpaper*: We have instant access to computers and tablets. We can send texts on our smartphones. We can email on our laptops. So, why do we still need a pen?

MN: People always ask me, what’s my gauge of what’s relevant or not, and ultimately I’m my own yardstick. I design things for myself. I’m a consumer, I spend money on things. So what would I want to spend the money in my pocket on? One of those things happens to be a pen.

I feel – and I know I’m not the only one amongst designers of my generation who feel the same – that there is a growing need to have analogue objects. A need to be able to use, relate and have a connection with essential tools in our lives. Things that stand the test of time in a way that technology simply – I don’t say can’t – but probably won’t.

W*: During your own personal creative processes, do you always start with pen to paper?

MN: I do, because that’s how I grew up. It’s really hard to beat the spontaneity of the gesture of what an object like a writing instrument gives you. I think for the foreseeable future, the pen is, gesturally, just the most fantastically immediate way of doing something.

ZK: I completely agree with that. I draw everything, and I travel a lot so I communicate with the design team at Montblanc by sketching in my sketchbook. I take a photos and send them off; they rework the ideas in the studio and send them back. If you start with a hand sketch it gives them the tactility and the understanding of the volumes they’re working on, and this is very, very important, to have the tactility, because otherwise it becomes too flat and technical.

W* So there’s a more organic, tactile feel to designing with a pen you mean…

ZK: it’s the way you communicate fastest, quickest, and the most directly. It’s also the way of interacting with each other. Have you seen the Yohji Yamamoto documentary Notebook of Cities and Clothes by Wim Wenders? In the last scene the pattern cutters are on the floor and there’s one pen, one pair of scissors and five people. One by one they pick up the pen, they draw something, somebody cuts and then somebody else picks up the pen… This interaction is actually what design is about – it’s not just one idea, it’s many, many ideas overlaying to create the final product.

MN: I just love the fact that when you use a fountain pen the ink visibly dries in front of you. It’s a wonderfully tactile, real-time experience.

W*: Zaim; why was Marc Newson the prefect collaborator for Montblanc?

ZK: This is the first time in the history of Montblanc that a fountain pen was designed by somebody external. We chose Marc because we share similar values; the importance of tactility, form, volume etc. so we wanted to see what it was like for Marc Newson to create a new icon of Montblanc.

I think we managed that really well, because not only did he respect what we were about, but he also disrupted and challenged us. The ‘second plateau’ on the pen, for instance, was a technically one of the most difficult things we have done…

W*: Yes.. talk us through the pen’s ‘Second Plateau’.

ZK: The design of a fountain pen normally is a consistent clean line. Marc did this cut. It looks simple, but technically to do this perfectly flat and create the perfect angle or radius that Marc wanted, was one of the most challenging things that our team had to do. I remember the first time that we presented the drawings, the team looked at me and said ‘can you not convince him to change it?’

I said not only can I not convince him, he’s put the Montblanc motif on it. I remember their sense of pride when they showed us they'd found the perfect angle. I think that finding the solution to this kind of challenge is why Montblanc is cherished and loved.

INFORMATION

For more information visit the Montblanc website

Not content with taking over London's Design Museum for a 50-year retrospective, Ferrari is now getting the full-on Taschen monograph treatment. With unrestricted access to the iconic Italian marque's extensive archives, this is a book for the enthusiast, the completist and the collector – and few car manufacturers have more rabid sets of all three. Called simply Ferrari, it's also a boost to the legend that is Enzo Ferrari (1898-1988), a manufacturer who began his career as a triumphant racing driver and team leader and who remains a totemic figure in car design. Enzo embodied Ferrari, for all his passion and foibles and the company's idiosyncratic ways can still be traced back to the sheer bloody-minded determination of him, his drivers, engineers and designers.

Those pictures provide an unstoppable beauty parade, of course, for Ferrari has had very few aesthetic misfires over the course of 50 years. The company has always tracked fashion as well as occasionally defining it, employing the skills of Italy's finest car designers – Pininfarina, Giugiaro, Scaglietti – and finding the sweet spot between performance, aerodynamics and sheer aesthetic perfection. Throughout the 1950s, 60s and 70s, the company was responsible for some of the most enduringly beautiful cars ever made, both on and off the track (the book includes a comprehensive appendix of Ferrari's racing history). It helps, too, that Ferrari regularly comes in top of investment lists like the Coutts Passion Index, as the vanishing rarity and aching beauty of cars like the 250 GTO continue to outperform every other kind of fund; a 250 GTO sold in June for $70m.

Detail of the Marc Newson-designed aluminium slipcase

That collectability is also referenced in the monograph's presentation, a Taschen speciality. Just 1,947 copies are being printed in total – referencing the year of the company's founding. The German publisher has turned to one of its regular collaborators Marc Newson for a spot of auto-related extravagance. Newson is a renowned car enthusiast and collector, and for Taschen he has pulled out all the stops.

The ‘regular' edition gets a Newson-designed aluminium slipcase, referencing the marque's many years of experience with the ultra-light material, as well as Newson's own penchant for it, while the Art Edition receives its own camply iconic stand. Just 250 of the copies will get the Art Edition treatment, each mounted on a massive sculptural stand inspired by Ferrari's legendary 12-cylinder engine. The Rossa corsa and chromed steel object will make the same kind of statement in your library as a Ferrari does on the street, just as Enzo always intended.

INFORMATION

Ferrari, edited by Pino Allievi. Collector’s Edition, £4,500. Art Edition, £22,500. For more information, visit the Taschen website

Back in September 2016, after years of anticipation, Louis Vuitton released its first perfume collection. The seven scents in the range, all designed for women, were created by in-house perfumer Jacques Cavallier, and came in attractively simple bottles designed by Marc Newson.

Two years on, Vuitton and Cavallier have turned their attention to the male sex, with ‘Les Parfums’ for men – five new fragrances that, in their words, ‘pay homage to the adventurer on a quest for self-revelation’. Sensibly, they’ve kept the same design for the bottles and packaging, with only subtle changes: each eau de parfum is a different pale colour, while the black magnetic bottle stoppers are stamped with the silver LV logo.

Sur la Route is Vuitton’s take on eau de cologne, with the evanescent but always refreshing scent of Calabrian lemon – specifically the zingy fruit and the bitter-fresh pulp around it – extended with a special grade of cedar and a touch of bergamot. The green note of freshly cut grass is balanced with the softer smell of Peruvian balsam which, Cavallier says, ‘includes the freshness of citrus and spicy notes of pink peppercorn and nutmeg’.

Orage uses the sexy, earthy smell of patchouli and pairs it with long-lasting top-quality iris, which adds a plush note of luxury to any scent. Though it’s not as stormy as its name suggests (or as woody as the press release describes it), Orage does have a hint of the green freshness that follows a summer downpour in the countryside.

L’Immensité has, perhaps, the most in common with the general run of men’s ‘sports’ fragrances such as Dior’s Sauvage, mainly because it has an overdose of the synthetic molecule Ambroxan. Some people love its mineral, slightly peppery note, but it reminds others of an electrical fire. Here, it’s framed by bitter grapefruit, ginger and labdanum.

Au Hazard takes another classic ingredient of men’s perfumery, sandalwood, using a sustainably cultivated variety from Sri Lanka. It’s a gentle, slightly spicy fragrance, with hints of cardamom and ambrette seeds, which would smell equally comfortable as a day or evening scent.

Finally, for lovers of gourmand perfumes, there’s Nouveau Monde, which uses an extract of natural cocoa from the former French colony of Ivory Coast in combination with oud to create a rich and exotic scent with a touch of saffron underneath. Despite being an eau de parfum strength, it’s restrained rather than overpowering, like all the fragrances in the range.

INFORMATION

‘Les Parfums’ for men, available in Louis Vuitton stores and online from 31 May. For more information, visit the website

Azzedine Alaïa dedicated his life to designing clothes that transcended trends, super-enhanced the female physique and upheld the classical ideal. His designs had an apparent simplicity, hard-won through fearless experimentation and technical complexity. One of the last projects he worked on before he passed away in November 2017 was a solo show at London’s Design Museum that would tie in with a new Maison Alaïa flagship store on Bond Street.

Alaïa had prepared the exhibition with gallerist Carla Sozzani, curator Mark Wilson, and the co-director of the Design Museum Alice Black. Entitled ‘Azzedine Alaïa: The Couturier’, it will showcase more than 60 outstanding pieces in front of a series of five monumental screens. ‘There has never been an Alaïa show in London. He did not stage big fashion shows and while he was an icon, he was also quite private,’ says Sozzani, founder of Galleria Carla Sozzani and 10 Corso Como in Milan. ‘People don’t necessarily know about his work so it’s wonderful to have this show – the first fashion exhibition at the Design Museum’s Kensington location.’

‘We saw the show as an installation rather than a retrospective,’ says Wilson, who had masterminded two Alaïa shows in 1997 and 2011 at the Netherlands’ Groninger Museum, where he works as chief curator. He came up with the idea for the screens to highlight the sculptural qualities of Alaïa’s clothes: ‘The architectural interventions allow for a 360-degree take on every piece. And it was obvious as to who would make them, as Alaïa had such great relationships with those designers and collected their work.’

Marc Newson, Konstantin Grcic, Kris Ruhs and the Bouroullec brothers were invited to collaborate. To all, Alaïa was a friend, patron and mentor. The brief was to create screens that would complement Alaïa’s work. All battled with the structural complexities of making vast freestanding pieces that could be assembled on site.

In terms of scale, Newson’s is the most ambitious. ‘It was crucial that the pieces remain about Alaïa rather than those intervening to enhance his work,’ says Newson. ‘That’s what we do as designers. I am always working for clients before working for myself. This project was no different, but there is a personal tinge to it because of our friendship,’ adds Newson, who first met Alaïa, through Sozzani, when living in Paris in the early 1990s.

Alaïa collected numerous Newson pieces, including the first aluminium lounger that he made as part of his graduate collection at art school in Sydney. ‘I’ve no idea of how he got hold of it,’ says Newson.

‘There are qualities in Alaïa’s work which shine through: simplicity mixed with technical complexity, rigour, subtlety, sensuality and transparency,’ he continues. ‘There is transparency in many of his garments and that is also the quality of a screen. It’s not a wall, but it has to have some play of light and movement within the absolute structural parameters.’ Newson chose anodised aluminium for his design, adding ‘the metal contrasts and complements the idea that everything around it is a textile’.

The piece, made by aluminium specialist Neal Feay in California, comprises 64 giant tiles, patterned using machine tools and boasting a soft, velvet-like surface. ‘The panels intersect, creating a random yet orderly pattern – almost like a houndstooth,’ says Newson. ‘The anodising process creates these subtle, profound colours – in this case, a flesh pink hue that Alaïa loved. It doesn’t look like hard metal, but sensual and tactile.’

The mission of giving hard surfaces a soft textile-like appearance is a nod to Alaïa’s own material experiments. If he could not find what he liked, he had it developed. He worked in densely-knit tricot for his famous body-sculpting dresses, in fine leather that he made appear as malleable as silk, in semisheer chiffon, sinuous bias-cut silk jersey and laser-cut lace. ‘He would often combine hard architectural elements, such as studs, with fluid materials, creating a tension,’ says Wilson, who has arranged the garments in themes, including volume, African-inspired outfits, black and bandage dresses.

Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec first met Alaïa in 2002 at the opening of their show at Galerie Kreo. Alaïa bought almost the entire collection. ‘It was a sympathetic meeting of shy people with like minds,’ says Ronan. For the Design Museum show, the duo decided on a glass screen. ‘Alaïa had a very precise understanding of silhouette. His clothes are elegant, refined and precise,’ says Ronan. Their textured glass panels (manufactured by Schott AG in Germany) are embedded with a film that creates a wave of gradating grey tones. ‘The quality is neither transparent nor opaque, but translucent,’ says Ronan.

It will be in sharp contrast to the contribution from sculptor Kris Ruhs, who worked with craftsmen in his Marrakech studio for a highly textural, organic piece. ‘It’s like a piece of jewellery, handmade in aluminium,’ says Ruhs. The artist, who created accessories for Alaïa, as well as store interiors, has also worked on a second screen for the show, to display artworks by Alaïa’s partner Christoph von Weyhe.

Konstantin Grcic’s screen is fashioned from polished stainless steel, manufactured by Ronchetti in Italy. ‘Because of the reflective surface, the material becomes somewhat immaterial, like a mirror,’ says Grcic, who constructed the piece from a grid-like pattern of panels. ‘The metal has an undulating surface and one edge is laser cut in a zigzag, like the cut of a tailor’s pinking shears.’ Alaïa owned several Grcic pieces, including a table and a vitrine from his Galerie Kreo shows.

Alaïa’s extensive collection of design and fashion is meticulously archived and housed in the Marais. ‘It’s a subterranean space that has to be as big as a Parisian block,’ says Newson. Works are also on show in his atelier and in stores. The 6,000 sq ft Maison Alaïa store on Bond Street, which is set over three floors, displays designs by Piero Lissoni, Renzo Piano, Naoto Fukasawa, wall sculptures by Ruhs and paintings by von Weyhe, curated by Alaïa and Sozzani, who will now oversee the studio and collections and head up the Azzedine Alaïa Foundation.

Alaïa’s last couture collection was presented in July 2017 and starred his friend Naomi Campbell in a striking velvet bodice and studded pleated gown. Several pieces from this collection will be on show. The giant-scale outfits are juxtaposed with film footage and Richard Wentworth’s almost forensic photographs of the atelier, which he shot over a period of two years. Legions of devotees, including Charlotte Stockdale, Farida Khelfa, Sofia Coppola, Brigitte Macron and Michelle Obama, worship the liberation (the construction is so meticulous that constrictive underwear is unnecessary) and refined eroticism of Alaïa’s clothes. At the time of his death, he was occupied with rescaling all the looks in the show to work with the epic dimensions of the installation.

Just as there is a sense of beautiful complicity between the couturier and the wearer, with Alaïa’s clothes there is also a union of design and culture. ‘All the designers you speak to have such reverence for Alaïa. Through the show we wanted to underline and appreciate that,’ says Black. Adds Newson, ‘Alaïa’s sphere of appreciation was just so broad – he was far more interested in design in general than fashion specifically.’

That like-mindedness was not simply theoretical. It was in Alaïa’s kitchen during his frequent gatherings that bonds were sealed. ‘His circle of friends was vast and from all walks of life. You could be sitting next to Catherine Deneuve, Lauren Bacall, Tadao Ando or Jack Lang – he had a fervid interest in so many things, a big heart and a really mischievous sense of humour,’ reminisces Newson. Says Wilson, ‘The exhibition will be a vision of the epic and the intimate, and a celebration of a generous genius at the epicentre of 20th- and 21st-century design.

Much of Alaïa’s design collection was purchased from Didier and Clémence Krzentowski, founders of Galerie Kreo in Paris. We talk to Clémence about their relationship...

Wallpaper*: How did you first meet Alaïa?
Clémence Krzentowski: Didier and I did a show with Marc [Newson] in 2000, the year after our gallery opened, which is when we met Azzedine. We have a saying in French – ‘On s’est rencontrés et on est tombés amoureux’ – which means we met and fell in love. It was instant connection. Azzedine often referred to Didier as his brother, and Christoph [von Weyhe] said that, in some ways, they even looked alike.

W*: What was your friendship with him like?
CK: We shared all the important moments of our lives with Azzedine. He came to the gallery to see every show, and we often went to events and design fairs together. Most of our encounters were in his kitchen, which was like a second home to us. We talked about fashion and design, but also art, food and nature. He was fascinated by everything. I once asked one of his assistants what he’d learned from Azzedine and he very earnestly replied, ‘I learned life’.

W*: Who did Alaïa admire?
CK: Azzedine loved Marc’s work from the beginning. Marc barely speaks French, and Azzedine didn’t speak English, but they understood each other completely, and Azzedine had a lot of joy in designing the wedding dress for Marc’s wife, Charlotte [Stockdale]. He also had a deep respect and admiration for Konstantin [Grcic], as they were both radical thinkers who enjoyed discovering new things. As for Ronan and Erwan [Bouroullec], he collected their work from the beginning. And since they lived in Paris, they would sometimes come to his kitchen, too.

W*: Do you see similarities in the ways in which Alaïa designed couture and collected furniture?
CK: He was fantastically open-minded about collecting, just as he was about designing. The only criteria he cared about was the content behind each thing. If a piece was interesting, he would want to have it, whether it was a light, a table, a chair, or a work of fashion, art or photography. But he didn’t collect that many names; it would be many pieces from the same people. His relationship with them ran deep.

W*: How was his design collection displayed?
CK: He lived with his pieces, from the Jean Prouvé petrol station that was in his bedroom to pieces by Konstantin and Ronan and Erwan. He had a lot of respect for his things, but he also believed that they should be enjoyed. Since he had too many pieces to have them all at home, the rest was kept at his Paris studio and workshop on rue de la Verrerie. Sometimes we would go and look at all the big boxes containing pieces that hadn’t yet been installed. I do hope they will find their way to his foundation.

As originally featured in the June 2018 issue of Wallpaper* (W*231)

Related: Jony Ive remembers Azzedine Alaïa

INFORMATION

‘Azzedine Alaïa: The Couturier’ is on view until 7 October. For more information, visit the Design Museum website

ADDRESS

Design Museum
224-238 Kensinton High Street
Kensington
London
W8 6AG

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With his inquisitive spirit and passion for hospitality, the late Azzedine Alaïa built enduring friendships with creatives near and far. Among the luminaries who happily fell into his orbit is Apple Chief Design Officer Jony Ive, who was introduced to the couturier via designer and long-time friend Marc Newson. A regular guest at Alaïa’s atelier on rue de la Verrerie, Ive would often observe the couturier at work. Their mutual admiration was made evident in 2013, when Alaïa’s pink ruffle dress became one of only two fashion items included in the blockbuster Red charity auction curated by Ive, Newson and musician Bono to fight AIDS in Africa. The next year, Alaïa would host a star-studded dinner at his atelier in honour of the Apple Watch.

Ahead of the Alaïa London store opening this evening, Ive reminisces with Wallpaper* Brand & Content Director Tony Chambers about a man he considered ‘an unambiguous master of his craft’.

TC: How did you meet, and what was the genesis of your lasting friendship?
JI: Azzedine was very close friends with Marc and it was vicariously, through Marc that I understood a little of him and his process. For many years Azzedine had been inviting me to a lunch or dinner in his famous kitchen. I think it was almost ten years ago that we had our first dinner together, which was preceded by spending a lot of time in his atelier. This turned out to be the first of many occasions I watched him work. Every single one was an extraordinary privilege, and we became friends very quickly. I don’t speak French and he didn’t speak English, but it’s quite extraordinary how sensitively he could communicate without the use of language. 

TC: Did you see any parallels between the way he worked and the way you do, or are the fashion and industrial design processes very different?
JI: The goals of our craft can be different, but very often the divisions between creative disciplines are somewhat arbitrary and artificially reinforced. What really struck me was that we shared a preoccupation with material – an intrinsic, fundamental understanding that you cannot disconnect a material from form. I found his tenacity and refusal to accept the limits of a material enormously inspiring. If something wasn’t working in the way he believed it should, he would go and create a new material. 

'Given Azzedine’s sense of culture, his sense of the future and of astute perception, I think it would be utterly bizarre if he didn’t have fascinations ranging from fine art through to industrial design.' –Jony Ive

TC: You are known for always starting your designs by hand, though you may then develop them in many different ways. Did observing Azzedine reinforce that process?
JI: If anything, it was an affirmation that our processes were extraordinarily similar. But as a consequence of the materials we worked in, there was this fundamental difference in the feedback loop. He could make design decisions and see their results immediately, whereas for me it can take months.

TC: Azzedine created clothes that people enjoyed wearing. His clothing really came to life when it was on the body. You kind of have to activate the design, which is something Apple products share. Across all design disciplines, it’s all well and good to have a beautiful thing, but truly good design needs to work when it’s activated.
JI: That’s something we certainly aspire to. I also feel there’s an inherent ugliness to something that doesn’t work. The thing that struck me about Azzedine was that he not only had a clear sense of his craft and prowess, but also a clear sense of intention. His understanding of culture and historical context was extraordinary, as was his commitment to what he did, the absence of delegation, and the degree of focus.

TC: He was very much the man at the head of the atelier, always working, never detached from the studio. There’s craft, but there’s also hard graft. I think it’s something you share.
JI: Absolutely. I’m happiest, most useful and most productive when I am designing, and that hasn’t changed for 30 years. And I always got the sense that it’s what Azzedine had done, and it wasn’t going to change. 

TC: Azzedine was also notable for individually usurping the fashion calendar. He didn’t play by the normal rules. You’re in a business where there are commercial pressures and rules; do you feel the same freedom to only put out your designs when they are ready?
JI: I think it would be presumptuous of me to. I don’t properly comprehend the structures and frameworks of his industry, but I think what defines and informs your work is that pursuit of excellence. It drives you to reject received wisdom and turn your back on commonly held dogma. 

TC: While fashion designers are increasingly embracing design and art, Azzedine’s fascination with industrial design was uncommon. His particular interest and taste is really illustrated by the list of talents used in the new London store – a crop of very modern industrial designers and architects like Naoto Fukasawa, Piero Lissoni, Marc Newson and Renzo Piano, rather than more art-leaning designers one would expect. Where would you say this comes from?
JI: Given Azzedine’s sense of culture, his sense of the future and of astute perception, I think it would be utterly bizarre if he didn’t have fascinations ranging from fine art through to industrial design. As a designer you need to participate in the world with your eyes open, and have obsessions and interests that span the creative disciplines.

Maison Alaïa's first London flagship boutique
 
TC: His all-encompassing curiosity and knowledge in all areas, and his particularly acute knowledge of design does come through clearly in his collections. 
JI: It certainly does. I was in awe of his capabilities, his craft, his insight and his sense of culture. 

TC: And his general working process, thinking process and design process.
JI: But also his support, kindness and generosity, which I was incredibly fortunate to be a beneficiary of. It means far more than I can possibly express with words.

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Alaïa website and the Apple website 

Marc Newson, Sir Don McCullin and Erdem Moralioglu were in for a shock, when Jason Brooks unveiled his latest realist portraits at Marlborough Fine Art in London. Having sat for hundreds of source photographs snapped by Brooks, and not been present while he painted the work, none of these percipient cultural figures had seen the finished, highly realistic results until opening night.

‘Some people might be more enamoured than others,’ laughed Brooks prior to the private view. The group of sitters – which also includes Tim Marlow, Will Self, Malcolm Venville and Sue Webster – are all friends of the painter, and were ‘pleased – in varying degrees – to collaborate on the project’.

‘I picked them because they each have a very discerning eye,’ Brooks continues. Each figure, cropped tightly around the face, is hung at eye-level in the London gallery, so that ‘the viewer becomes the subject – the paintings examine you.’

Even war-hardened photographer McCullin was ‘a little alarmed’ by what he’d come up against. ‘It’s nerve-wracking, as someone who usually does this to others, to be looked into so deeply,’ he says. ‘Obviously we are all only skin deep, but you know that with Jason’s skill and application, he will discover the hidden depths and every detail of facial make up.'

Despite the piercing vision with which Brooks conducts his portraits, he made the atmosphere an engaging one for his sitters. ‘It was actually enjoyable –  we talked, joked around and had some pretty serious conversation too,’ explains Newson. Fashion’s Moralioglu enjoyed it to: ‘It was fascinating to see Jason’s work in progress,’ he says. ‘Sitting for a portrait is quite an intimate process and his attention to detail is almost forensic.’

It’s this exhaustive descriptiveness that Brooks has become known for, and his paintings have often been compared to photographs in their dizzying detail and acute accuracy. But Brooks isn’t keen on the word ‘photographic’, which could mean anything in today’s visual language. Created from memory and source photography, the portraits are not intended to be an exact likeness, but an interpretation; a new form altogether.

‘We live in an age where people are trying to airbrush out detail, I'm trying to airbrush it in,’ he says of his visceral works. He intends for them to be seen up close and personal, not badly photographed by passers-by and posted on Instagram. ‘Not that I'm knocking technology,’ says Brooks, ‘but I'm in the business of the tangible.’

Having such a cast of characters as subjects will now doubt get bodies through the door (who doesn’t want a one-sided staring match with a larger-than-life Will Self?) – but, again, this isn't of particular interest to Brooks. His message is more cerebral, as the rest of the threefold exhibition attests.

Titled ‘The Subject Is Not The Subject’, the survey is not really about what he is depicting at all, but how. Brooks – a painter’s painter – is interested in how a work can focus on one art object, and, via a journey of exploration, turn it into another.

For instance, one downstairs gallery boasts impressionistic landscapes inspired by amateur paintings, each named after a John Clare poem. The other holds an imposing 19th-century inspired bust, surrounded by devotional paintings. If you didn’t know better, you’d think the gallery was presenting a group of artists, not one – an idea Will Self brilliantly repels in his accompanying essay The Object is not Objective.

Through his own, unique ‘vocabularly of painting’, Brooks asks us to think about how he paints – every technique and trick he uses. Whether a landscape, portrait or sculpture is in the frame, is not the point. So, what starts as entertaining magnifying glass turned upon the facial features of art-world celebrity, becomes an academic jostling on the language of painting, and then, an interrogration of ‘representation’ in general. Each segment is as complex, and pleasing, as the last. 

INFORMATION

‘Jason Brooks: The Subject Is Not The Subject’ is on view until 10 March. For more information, visit the Marlborough Fine Art website

ADDRESS

Marlborough Fine Art
6 Albermarle Street
London W1S 4BY

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‘I got fired over that dress!’ says Carla Sozzani, pointing at a sculpted strapless black gown from Azzedine Alaïa’s 1988 collection. Sozzani and Alaïa’s partner, the artist Christophe von Weyhe (both founders of the Association Azzedine Alaïa), opened an exquisite show in Paris last night, showing 41 works by the renowned couturier, curated by Olivier Saillard. ‘I shot it for the cover of Italian Elle with Paolo Roversi,’ she adds. ‘It was a beautiful image – it flew like an angel – but a Parisian couturier on the cover of an Italian magazine! That was not considered a good move.’ 

The exhibition, covering a lifetime’s work and entitled ‘Je Suis Couturier’, was in the planning stages before Monsieur Alaïa’s unexpected passing in November 2017. Yet the work – dating from his signature flitty hemmed, sculpted black-seamed jersey dresses of 1981 – proves unnervingly timeless. ‘We decided to chose pieces in black and in white to show the essence of Alaïa,’ says Saillard. ‘Alaïa was always incredible in his technical research and his sensibility was always passionate. He was the heir of Charles James, Madame Vionnet and Cristobal Balenciaga.’

The essence? Alaïa sought to rebuild the sensuality of a woman in material; to create a shadow and allow a woman to ‘be’, says Saillard. On clothing, Alaïa has said: ‘I like when they are beautiful and timeless, not cluttered with details, ornaments and colours that prematurely age them. The simplest are the most difficult to create.’ 

Alaïa created his first collection in 1979, in black and optical whites that he ‘carved’ into divine dresses that could be simultaneously dignified and erotic. Whether working in black leather (there are two fantastic ruched and knotted mini skirts worn with black bodies from 1983), cotton, jersey, leather or mousseline, Alaïa was a master of his material, silhouette and proportion, and he continually evolved his oeuvre, pushing the boundaries for what was technically possible and always with an invisible touch. The collection is shown on body forms rather than traditional mannequins to show off the personality of the dresses, including a sinuous hooded white jersey (recreated from a black version 1986) and worn by Grace Jones.

There are several looks in the exhibition from his last couture collection, shown in July 2017 to a standing ovation and featuring his long time friend Naomi Campbell modelling. ‘I wore that one!’ said Campbell, pointing to a long gown with a velvet bodice and metal-studded pleated skirt. Cindy Crawford, in a leopard trench, and her model daughter, Kaia Gerber, friends Marc Newson and Charlotte Stockdale, and Sacai’s Chitose Abe were also at the opening at the start of haute couture week in Paris at 18 Rue de la Verrerie, where Alaïa lived, entertained and worked.

‘My friendship began in 1959. I was a student at art school and we had a mutual friend in common. I first painted Alaïa’s portrait in 1972. Alaïa did not change, he always wanted to explore the possibilities of realising the dress and he did absolutely everything in the making from A–Z,’ says von Weyhe. A series of his works are on show in Alaïa’s home in Sidi Bou Said, Tunisia, until March 2018.

INFORMATION

’Je Suis Couturier’ is on view until 10 June. For more information, visit the Alaïa website

ADDRESS

Galerie Azzedine Alaïa
18 rue de la Verrerie
75004 Paris

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Sotheby’s 20th century design specialists Cécile Verdier, senior director, and Laetitia Contat-Desfontaines, deputy director and head of sale, with Wallpaper* brand and content director Tony Chambers, at Sotheby’s warehouse in West London. From left to right; ‘Floris’ chair in moulded fibreglass-reinforced polyester, 1967, by Günter Beltzig; ‘Wing-Nut’ chair in hardboard, piano hinges and wing-nut connectors, 1985, by Jasper Morrison; ‘All Night Long’ table in coated carbon fibre and Nomex honeycomb paper, 2002, by Ron Arad; ‘Fragments’ wall lamp in reclaimed Venini glass and steel, 2010, by Fernando & Humberto Campana, for Venini; ‘SQN5-T’ table in stainless steel, 2012, by Zhang Zhoujie; ‘Bone’ rocker in cast black marble resin, 2009, by Joris Laarman; ‘Flora’ bureau, model No. 2131, in mahogany-veneered wood, mahogany, brass and printed paper, designed C1950-51, by Josef Frank, for Svenskt Tenn.

‘Living in a Material World.’ It’s a brave title for an auction, perhaps. Yet for Sotheby’s design auction on 17 October, curated by our own brand and content director Tony Chambers, the title has a very literal intent: the 150-odd pieces included have been selected for their material expression. ‘It’s interesting how our perception of the word “material” has changed in the three decades since Madonna’s anthem,’ Chambers says. ‘It was a crass and fairly derogatory term not so long ago that spoke of greed, but today we think of the word as having more noble, fine and pure connotations.’ To be clear: this is an auction exploring materiality, not materialism.

Standing in Sotheby’s storage facility in the outer reaches of West London is a surreal experience. After wending one’s way through warehouses filled with canned drinks and mass-market furniture (a stark reminder that we do still live in Madonna’s material world), you find yourself surrounded by goods of a much higher order. Out of context, away from the workshop, gallery, hotel lobby or home, it’s curiously humbling to see these spectacular works of design for what they are. They were not intended to be lots or price tags, but ideas brought to life through craft and technology as functional objects. Jasper Morrison’s ‘Wing-Nut’ chair is in one corner, its expressive utility fitting right into the warehouse. A ‘Cake’ stool by the Campana brothers is being carried in a grey industrial laundry bag, while their ‘Broken Dreams’ chandelier for Venini sails past on a trolley. Everything feels off duty and all the more fascinating and spectacular for it.

Cécile Verdier, senior director and coworldwide head of 20th century design at Sotheby’s, is leaning against Marc Newson’s ‘Extruded Table 3’, a seemingly impossible piece of furniture laser-cut from a single block of Striato Olimpico marble. You can’t help but touch it. It requires no small amount of willpower not to lick it. ‘A consignment arrived last year with a group of six pieces from a European private collector,’ Verdier explains. ‘They were an interesting mixture of contemporary pieces – Hadid, Newson, Arad – and we were struck by the collective narrative of material expression. Wallpaper* was the obvious partner to help us tell this story. Tony and his team have helped cross the boundaries of different industries, introducing us to the pioneering and the common elements in design that shape modern life.’

This was the seed from which the auction has grown. It is a collection that traces the evolution of how designers master and manipulate materials, from the politeness of post-war furniture to the use of the most advanced technologies to achieve something more akin to alchemy. As such, there’s an anthropological thread to the hoard. The collection tells the story of modern design through the lens of materials, encompassing the evolution not just of technology, but of skill, taste, trend and wider social values, too.

Materiality is more than just a handy hook for bringing the collection together. It’s also a response to where we find ourselves today, reflecting our growing appreciation of materials. As daily life is increasingly spent in virtual worlds or on digital desktops, we yearn for analogue, physical experiences to act as a counterbalance. Materials summon up primal urges – hence the desire to lick the marble. ‘Across contemporary life we are witnessing profound appreciation for experiences and sensations that ground us,’ Chambers explains. ‘We respond to things that engage our senses and make us feel human.’ Bearing testament to this, in the warehouse there’s a lot of stroking going on.

Laetitia Contat-Desfontaines, Sotheby’s 20th century design head of sale, elaborates, keeping one hand on Ron Arad’s ‘All Night Long’ table: ‘It’s almost like an antidote to our obsession with social media. We crave the materiality and texture that design offers. Craftsmanship is a tangible link to reality. It speaks of skill, tradition, quality and time – when we feel these qualities we build a relationship with the pieces.’

‘People buy design at auction because they love the piece,’ adds Verdier. ‘They don’t buy to sell, in the same way as they do with art. Generally, they live with the designs they buy, and use them, and so they have an intimate relationship with them – it’s a commitment.’

Surveying the diverse lots that will be up for auction in October, it’s a powerful concept. Taking materials as a starting point encourages a new appreciation of older, familiar pieces and a fuller interrogation of more contemporary designs. Joris Laarman’s extraordinary ‘Bone’ rocker, 3D-printed using powdered Belge Noir marble and resin, sits beside a mahogany bureau by Josef Frank for Svenskt Tenn, bedecked in botanicals. Both are exquisite examples of their period’s craftsmanship and material expression, six decades apart. Elsewhere, Pierre Jeanneret’s armchairs sit beside the Campana brothers’ ‘Cake’ stool; the elegant utility of wood and leather designed for civic duties in Chandigarh is juxtaposed with the synthetic fluffy toys found on São Paulo street stalls – kitsch commerce elevated into something valuable.

The breadth and depth of this collection makes clear how design has evolved over time in the minds and hands of different people. It is a positive story of progress. ‘Each piece is a story brought to life through materials,’ Chambers summarises. ‘Any new technology presents an opportunity for reinventing or developing a material into a new form. The story of design is effectively the combination of human ideas, material expression and technological development.’

INFORMATION

‘Living in a Material World’, pre-sale exhibition: Friday 13 – Monday 16 October; auction: Tuesday 17 October, For more information, visit the Sotheby’s website

‘The Rise of Design and its Importance in our Digital World’ talk will take place on Saturday 14 October. The event is free, register for tickets here

ADDRESS

Sotheby’s
34–35 New Bond Street
London W1A 2AA

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Launched 30 years ago, the Air Max 1 put an entirely new spring in Nike’s step. The transparent bubble in its sole promised increased lift and a soft landing, but it was the shoe’s design and the sole unit’s open architecture – its designer, sneaker-freak deity Tinker Hatfield, said he was inspired by the Pompidou Centre – that gave the Air Max 1 its iconic appeal.

Now, after eight years of development and thousands (126,000 to be exactish) of miles of testing, the sportswear giant has launched VaporMax, a radical new sole of sculpted air-pumped plastic. Nike insists its minimalist series of pressurised ridges and canyons represents an evolutionary leap as altitudinal as the Air Max 1. Matched with a Flyknit upper, VaporMax-equipped shoes can do without the structural support that, as even Nike admits, created a frustrating gap between what the air-filled bags promised and what they delivered. There is now much less between you and your air.

The new sole was first previewed on a limited-run Commes des Garçons design, which has just debuted, alongside the more standard issue Nike Air VaporMax. But to give the launch extra lift, Nike, or more properly NikeLab, is also putting out a second collaboration with the industrial designer Marc Newson.

Newson and Nike first collaborated on the Zvezdochka, or Z-Doc as Nike insiders understandably prefer, launched in 2004 and reissued ten years later. The shoe was made of four interchangeable parts, including an injection-moulded outer shell. Although produced in a limited run, the shoe’s innovations in terms of design and manufacturing had a huge impact on Nike’s thinking.

Newson’s NikeLab Air VaporMax has a different ambition. ‘With the VaporMax project, the mandate wasn’t to reinvent the wheel,’ Newson says. ‘It was just to take the sole and build on top of it. The sole is inherently high tech. And I think that it is fairly literal from a visual perspective. You look at it and it looks techy and you can see the amount of time that has gone into figuring out how this thing works. And it does work, really well.’

In design terms, though, Newson has gently jogged in another direction, adding a leather moccasin-like upper – a full-grain leather chassis is cross-stitched to a Flyknit woven sock liner and features a Velcro strap. The look is comfortable, casual and almost earthy. ‘I wanted to demystify the rest of the shoe, to create something that wasn’t too intimidating. I looked at the sole – and of course it didn’t exist in any other product at the time – and thought, “What would I like to own, what would I spend my money on?” I’ve come up with the type of shoe I could wear every day. And that is the approach I take with most of the things that I do. It is ultimately a very utilitarian thing and you have to feel comfortable wearing it. And I have been.’

Newson also understood that Nike wanted him to be part of a serious pivot for the company. ‘Well, I had been aware of this technology for a long time. I witnessed it evolve over the last eight years, I knew enough to know how profound a development it was within the company and how important it was. I knew it was going to be iconic.’

As originally featured in the May issue of Wallpaper* (W*218)

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Nikelab website

The unveiling of the Claridge’s Christmas tree has traditionally heralded the start of London’s festive season, not least because of the illustrious roster of designers who have headlined the Mayfair hotel’s installations. For 2016, it is designers (and long-time friends of the hotel) Sir Jony Ive and Marc Newson who have taken up the challenge of reinterpreting the tree.

The pair, who collaborated with British set designer Michael Howells on the project, explain, ‘Our aim was to create an all-enveloping magical experience that celebrates our enormous respect for tradition while recognising our excitement about the future and things to come.’ This year’s installation is suitably forward-looking with nary a bauble or thread of tinsel to be seen, instead exploring the relationship between nature and technology.

See Claridge’s past Christmas tree collaborations

Transforming Claridge’s grand lobby, a series of vast four metre-high light boxes line the walls, illuminating black-and-white images of snow-capped silver birch trees. Against this immersive backdrop, towering cast models of Scots pine rise to a canopy of natural green pine.

‘There are few things more pure and beautiful than nature, so that was our starting point, layering various iterations of organic forms with technology,’ Ive and Newson say. A soundscape recalls acoustics from a forest, starting with a dawn chorus and including owls, nightingales, sparrows and foxes. Specially choreographed lighting – synced to the soundscape – creates a dappled effect in the space, continuously cycling through sunrise to a celestial night scene.

Jony Ive on Apple Park

A smaller sapling tree grows among the ‘forest’, playing with proportions – but it’s also a symbol of the future, they say. In a year as tumultuous as this one has been, Claridge’s festive installation ushers in some much needed calm and optimism.

INFORMATION

The Christmas installation is on view until 3 January 2017. For more information, visit the Claridge’s website

ADDRESS

Claridge's
Brook St
London W1K 4HR

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With the Design Museum on the verge of opening its sparkling new West London doors, there's an autumn design buzz in London at the moment. Coinciding with this is another celebration of international design in the capital, Sotheby's ‘Design’ – the second edition of the house's relaunched design-centric sale (last year's was the first in half a decade) and a preceding exhibition at its New Bond Street space.

Following editions hosted in New York and Paris earlier this year, 'Design' London takes place on Tuesday 15 November, offering up a expansive list of 173 pieces. Exhibiting the products from tomorrow, the roster features 20th century pieces that span the classic and contemporary, functional and abstract, spending significant effort honing in on postmodern Scandinavian design with highlights from Arne Jacobsen, Hans Wegner and Peder Moos.

These minimalist masterpieces stand alongside Gio Ponti silhouettes from the 1930s–60s; whimsical Ron Arad chairs; and experimental forms from Italian stalwarts Ettore Sottsass and Andrea Branzi.

'Just like the city itself, our London "Design" sale is developing its own unique character,' says Laetitia Contat-Desfontaines, Sotheby's head of 20th century design sales. 'Exciting new initiatives such as the inaugural [London] Design Biennale at Somerset House and the fantastic new home for the Design Museum are putting design at the forefront of the cultural life of the city.'

Contemporary lots include a marble table by Marc Newson, Studio Job’s playful 'Bottle Rack’, and clay sculptures by Maarten Baas, while extra special Picasso ceramics and Zaha Hadid prototypes show the team have most styles covered for discerning collectors.

‘Design’ follows an impressive display of David Bowie’s extensive art and design collection, marking a nuanced and successful stream of shows at the auction.

INFORMATION

’Design’ takes place at Sotheby’s on 15 November. For more information, visit the Sotheby’s website

ADDRESS

Sotheby's
34–35 New Bond Street
London W1S 2RT

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Marc Newson talks about the design process behind his latest Jaeger-LeCoultre Atmos clock. Film courtesy of Jaeger-LeCoultre

Anyone who knows Marc Newson knows he loves watches. Indeed, he has been creating them since the mid-1990s, when his Swiss Ikepod brand refreshed traditional horological thinking with a whole new design sensibility. But even Newson couldn’t have imagined that he’d become the most recognised watch designer in the world when the Apple Watch launched last year.

Today, fresh out of his horological dalliance with Silicon Valley, Newson looks content in the altogether more picturesque Vallée de Joux, the heartland of Swiss watchmaking. He is here to take a final look at the results of his latest time-keeping collaboration with Swiss watch and clock manufacturer Jaeger-LeCoultre, which this month will reveal its third Newson-designed Atmos clock. It has been two years in the making.

Marc Newson designed his first Atmos for Jaeger-LeCoultre - the 561 in 2008, followed by the 566 in 2010. This new iteration, the 568, is a distinctly honed version of both, in part, Newson says because the plan is to extend the production volume, which will, in turn, lower the price. The previous models were strictly limited editions of no more than 25 and were priced upwards of around €80,000. The new 568 is not limited and will retail in the vicinity of €25,000.

It felt like the Atmos was being left behind when I came along’, says Newson, of the initial collaboration. ’I love the idea of designing objects that stand the test of time, things that you can hand on, pass through the family. I don’t think about Atmos clocks as clocks - they are wonderful, sculptural objects that happen to be timepieces. You’ll never find an Atmos clock in landfill because they are inherently valuable objects; the opposite of disposability.’

The Atmos has been in continual production since 1933. The engineer Jean-Léon Reutter designed the technology in 1928. He wanted to invent a timekeeper that would keep perfect time for centuries, without the need for any outside intervention. He devised a gas-driven mechanism activated by small, sequential changes in temperature, and the Atmos clock got its brilliantly futuristic name. Jaeger-LeCoultre, by then one of a handful of grand maisons of Swiss watchmaking, acquired, perfected and developed Reutter’s idea. Atmos clocks are powered by a small, hermetically sealed gas chamber - originally filled with mercury - which dilates when the temperature rises and contracts when it drops. At Jaeger-LeCoultre’s specialist Atmos department in Le Sentier, it is often referred to as ’the mechanical lung’ that ’breathes’ in and out, winding the mechanism in line with atmospheric shifts. The clocks are so energy efficient that a mere one-degree Celsius shift will power the clock for 48 hours.

The futurism of Reutter’s vision is compelling to a designer of Newson’s technical breadth. ’The Atmos clock keeps time beyond any outside influence that, in itself, is completely modern,’ he says. Then, there is Atmos’ Steampunk aesthetic. ’The clocks are so sculptural that I knew they could be interpreted in a contemporary way. The glass casing was generally a means of keeping the movement covered, but glass has obvious structural qualities, so it’s not like we are putting a movement in a fish tank - it’s a holistic process because we work from the outside in.’

Because of the Atmos 568’s expanded production potential, Newson had to take a different approach. The case was created with French crystal specialists Baccarat from a monobloc of crystal. The process to perfect the form has taken two years because Newson did not want a symmetrical outline. Rather, he wanted a low curve at the bottom, which better plays with the light and gives a sense of the mechanics floating. That anomaly caused havoc because, as Newson points out, ’Glass relies on consistency. As soon as you introduce an irregularity, it goes all over the place.’

The crystal also has to be polished inside and out which, on this scale, is a highly specialised technique. ’The level of precision needed was greater because the form has to be easily repeatable,’ says Newson. ’The shape is more rigid than the previous ones and that’s because it’s a particular formation of crystal glass. I’ve worked with glass in many applications across my projects. Making that shape is almost impossible - only Baccarat could do this.’

Newson was also keen to ’inject a level of newness’ to the movement, which he did with decorative details. The bolts that attach the movement and chamber to the glass are designed by him and, being a skilled watch designer, Newson used smooth and brushed finishes to heighten shadow play and add depth. The crystal, too, has been designed to play with light, giving the clock an intriguingly new character from different points of view. The dial, moonphase and hands are created in-house, and the numerals are tampography printed. The hands are counterbalanced so that they do not consume any energy when turning.

Newson is clearly in happy territory here, in the Swiss valleys, working with horological engineers, taming complex materials to create beautiful things. ’It’s always wonderful to get a chance to revisit things, which doesn’t happen much with me’, he says. ’I suppose this time round I’ve approached the design from a more philosophical point of view. The more that tech keeps infiltrating our lives, the more magical objects like the Atmos clock generate more interest - like looking at an open fire. They’re mesmeric.’

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

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Jaeger-LeCoultre website

Louis Vuitton may be one of the biggest and most successful luxury brands in the world, but until now it has lacked one very profitable element in the luxury portfolio: a perfume. Back in the 1920s the company did have its own fragrances, but its last release was in 1946 and since then, nothing… until now.

Rumours that Vuitton was planning a perfume have been circulating since 2011, not long before it appointed Jacques Cavallier as its in-house nose, but it’s taken over four years for his work to see the light of day. And while it would have been hard for any scents to live up to the expectations aroused by such a major brand, Vuitton and Cavallier have given it an excellent try.

With bottles designed by Marc Newson, no less, and a series of complex floral fragrances that buck (and might even reverse) the unisex and minimalistic trends of the last few years, these are ambitious perfumes, as befits a brand with such corporate clout.

Released earlier this month but only available in Louis Vuitton stores, there are seven perfumes in the range, all inspired in some way by ideas of travel.

‘Rose de Vents’ is a fruity, full-blooded rose, which uses three different versions of the raw ingredient: essences of Turkish and Bulgarian rose, plus Vuitton’s own exclusive CO2 extraction from centifolia roses grown near Grasse, the historic centre of French perfumery, where the company has recently opened its own grand atelier. To add to its complexity, ‘Rose de Vents’ also includes iris, Virginia cedar and a touch of pepper.

‘Turbulences’ is based on sultry August evenings in Cavallier’s garden in Grasse, and the mingled scents of jasmine and tuberose. As an ingredient, tuberose can often be unpleasantly overpowering, but Cavallier’s take is surprisingly fresh, tempered by notes of May rose, leather, magnolia, jasmine sambac and Jasminum grandiflorum from Grasse.

‘Dans la Peau’ is our personal favourite: a lovely light leather scent, based on natural leather from the Louis Vuitton workshops, it has an almost cologne-like quality, with a hint of apricot. It also includes extracts of narcissus and both Chinese and Grasse jasmine.

‘Apogee’ is an equally fresh, clean recreation of the famously fugitive scent of lily of the valley. This green, lemony floral fragrance is built from jasmine and May rose from Grasse, Chinese magnolia, sandalwood and guaiac wood.

‘Contre Moi’ takes another difficult ingredient, vanilla, which can all too often smell childish and cloyingly sweet, but Cavallier lightens its cake-like associations by using two different varieties, then adding ambrette seeds, orange blossom, Rosa centifolia, magnolia and bitter cocoa. If that sounds over-rich, it has a surprisingly citrusy start and a pleasantly edible finish.

‘Matière Noire’ is, for our money, the most unisex and abstract composition of the set, but then it’s based around patchouli, which of course is used in many men’s perfumes. It seems that Cavallier is a great fan of Laos agarwood, and he uses this here along with blackcurrant, narcissus and sambac jasmine, plus rose, cyclamen, benzoin and incense. Again, if that mix sounds incoherent on the page, it works much better on the skin.

‘Mille Feux’, the seventh and final perfume in the range, is another take on leather, only this time with the addition of raspberry – apparently inspired by some raspberry coloured leather that Cavallier saw on a visit to a Vuitton workshop. It’s as fruity as you might expect, but that’s balanced with a nice fresh leather, plus the delicate apricot of osmanthus, with iris and saffron underneath.

You could say that Les Parfums Louis Vuitton are a return to a style of feminine fragrances that France was once famous for, just as Vuitton has returned the locus of its perfume-creation to Grasse, perfumery’s historic centre. Both are intriguing moves, and it will be interesting to see whether it kicks off an entirely new trend.

INFORMATION
Les Parfums Louis Vuitton, from £180. For more information, visit the Louis Vuitton website 

Louis Vuitton is launching an innovative new range of rolling trunks for the 21st century traveller, designed by Wallpaper* Power Lister and internationally renowned industrial designer Marc Newson.

Its core is moulded as a slim and elastic, shock-proof mesh matrix of self-reinforced polypropylene composite. To achieve the greatest lightness possible, Vuitton’s celebrated Monogram canvas has been slimmed down 50 per cent without compromising its original characteristics.

Unlike most rolling trunks, the extendable cane, engineered in lightweight anodised aluminium, has been relocated to the outside, adding structure and strength and removing bulky bumps and ridges from the interior, allowing for more packing space. A new transversal side hinge is built into the structure of the trunk, and the three-digit combination zip-pull lock system – with a single zipper pull – is designed to reduce weight and avoid the usual stress points of double zip pulls.

The new trunk comes in three sizes: mini (50 x 35 x 20 cm), cabin (55 x 39 x 21 cm) and maxi (68 x 46 x 26 cm). All three sizes are available in the classic Monogram canvas, Monogram Eclipse, Damier Graphite, Taiga leather and a rainbow of seven colours of Epi leather.

Newson and Vuitton worked rigorously to achieve some impressive stats: 36 litre capacity for the cabin size – an increase in internal volume of 13 per cent compared to a similar sized trunk – and a weight of a mere 2.7kg for the mini version and just 3kg for the cabin size. Development took around 18 months, although frequent flier Newson says he's ‘probably spent 20 years designing these things in my head, long before I knew that I was going to be doing this for Louis Vuitton’.

‘I think it’s safe to say that we’re striving to break new ground in terms of developing a product which is one of the lightest in the market, and from a technical perspective is one of the most rigorously designed and engineered,' explains Newson. 'I’m obsessive about packing everything into a bag of a certain size, which is why it was so important for me to design a product that could tick all of those boxes and be the perfect piece of luggage for a person like me, [who] won’t travel with anything more than is absolutely necessary.'

To accompany the launch, the French maison will offer shoppers who purchase their cases a 48 hour after-sales repair service in 14 global cities, which will also be integrated into the Louis Vuitton travel app.

’I’m obsessive about packing everything into a bag of a certain size,’ explains Newson, ’which is why it was so important for me to design a product that could tick all of those boxes and be the perfect piece of luggage for a person like me, [who] won’t travel with anything more than is absolutely necessary.’ Click above to learn more about the collaboration

INFORMATION

Photography/videography courtesy Louis Vuitton

‘Let there be light’ seemed to be the mission statement radiating from Galerie Kreo's tastefully illuminated booth at San Francisco's FOG Design+Art Fair. ‘In all my booths, there is a lot of lights because that is my passion,’ says Didier Krzentowski, who founded the gallery with his wife Clémence, and also co-authored a history of lights with her. For Krzentowski, there is no greater talent than Gino Sarfatti – the late Italian maestro who was the subject of a 2012 retrospective at La Triennale Design Museum in Milan.

Dressed in a sharp blue suit and navy slippers monogrammed with ON and OFF, Krzentowski picked up a yellow-shaded, bronze-based floor lamp, adjusted it with a simple twist of his hand before moving towards his favourite: a two-bulb blue shaded Scarfatti sconce. ‘He was thinking about lighting different positions however you wanted,’ he says. ‘It's easy to do something complicated, but something so simple, it's very difficult.’

Around and under lamps, illuminated mirrors and chandeliers from Scarfatti, Studio Wieki Somers and the Bouroullec brothers, Kreo shed some light on their decor. Against one wall leaned a carbon fibre ladder by Marc Newson beside Doshi Levien's multi-colored 'Squarable Lune' mirror. Across the booth, Jaime Hayon's Venetian-influenced ‘Monkey’ mirror held court between Alessandro Mendini's reflective white gold 'Poltrona' chair and a hollowed console made from Maquina black marble by Pierre Charpin. ‘It's genius because it's concave inside,’ says Krzentowski pointing out the engineering that allowed for the weighty material to be so light. 

However, the centre of attention in the booth seemed to be focused on the glass-topped 'Champions' table from Konstantin Grcic. Inspired by racing sports, its red, green and yellow aluminium base appeared to invoke a road bicycle or cigarette boat, enhanced via the word ‘Jetdog’ emblazoned down the middle by master lacquerer Walter Maurer. 

‘It doesn't mean anything,’ says Krzentowski with a laugh. ‘But "Jetdog" gives you the feeling of speed.’

INFORMATION
For more information, visit Fod Design+Art’s website or Galerie Kreo’s website

In early October, the House of Jensen opened its doors: located in an ancient courtyard house in the heart of Beijing, it is part of a revolution of the Georg Jensen brand that CEO David Chu has been working on since being appointed in 2013.

Chu’s first priority was to address the brand’s presence in key global markets. ‘When I got involved with this company, it had retreated from Germany and from the States. And it never went into China in a significant way,’ he explains. ‘These are the most important consumer markets in the world today, so I decided to rally our team and focus on them.’

The brand unveiled its Munich store earlier this year, and plans for refurbishment of New York’s Madison Avenue outpost are in place. A new boutique on Mount Street in London is opening before the end of the year, and more locations in the city are slated. But the space in Beijing is the most important step in the journey. ‘We are actually relaunching as a brand in China,’ says Chu, who noted that, while Georg Jensen’s presence in China had never previously gone beyond a few distributors in Shanghai, Chinese visitors are among the biggest buyers of hollowware at the company’s Copenhagen flagship.

The new space will introduce Georg Jensen to the local audience, while presenting Danish culture in a way that is new for the brand. Chu calls the concept ‘a total package of Danish design’: in addition to a boutique, with two showrooms for the hollowware and the jewellery collections, House of Jensen will also include three dining options, bringing contemporary Danish gastro-culture to the city, helping locals and visitors understand what the brand stands for. ‘People will have a full tour of Georg Jensen here,’ Chu explains.

The two-storey, 10,000 sq ft building, restored and updated, is located in a hutong on the banks of the Jade River in Beijing’s Lake District, next to curator Weng Ling’s Beijing Centre for the Arts, and was once part of the arts complex. It features an industrial, glass and steel roof and walkways covered with 300-year-old bricks, exemplifying the mix of tradition and innovation that Georg Jensen does so well.

Visitors enter through a pair of ancient wooden doors into a bright atrium, the core of the dining concept, which includes a library lounge, a bar-cum-café and a fine dining space, called The Georg, all headed by Canadian chef Talib Hudda, chosen by Chu for his experience at contemporary dining spots in Copenhagen. Danish design studio Space Copenhagen, a long-term Georg Jensen collaborator, and behind the interiors of the city’s Noma and Geist restaurants, has designed the ground floor, including the dining areas. Upstairs, jewellery and hollowware are on display in two intimate salons designed by Murray Moss, who acts as a design consultant for the brand.

In a serendipitous move, the opening of House of Jensen coincides with the unveiling of a new product – a silver tea set by Marc Newson. Georg Jensen has a long history of collaborations, designers from Henning Koppel to Arne Jacobsen having contributed, over the decades, to its archive. But the last collaboration for the silversmith department, in particular, was with Verner Panton in 1988, and Chu decided to revive the tradition, enlisting Newson. ‘When Marc told me he trained as a silversmith, I was very surprised,’ Chu says, ‘because of his modern design, which is always about different materials.’

Newson’s diverse creative background allowed him to work with the silversmithy in a way that celebrated its skills but resulted in a contemporary aesthetic. Newson’s design did, Chu admits, pose a couple of subtle challenges to the craftsmen and encouraged innovation. The first is the functional mechanism of the tea pot lid: it opens and closes by sliding underneath the pot’s surface. ‘It’s quite a simple principle, but to actually make it work in a practical, usable way is really difficult to do,’ says Newson. The other element, he explains, is the introduction of fine cane woven into the silver, something that hadn’t been done before. More traditionally, each piece in the tea set – which features mammoth tusk to create the handles – is entirely handmade in Copenhagen.

Chu defines the design as domestic, modest and functional. Newson agrees. ‘The purpose of the exercise is not to reinvent the wheel, but to celebrate a very well-established skill set that exists within Georg Jensen. Given the opportunity to work with such a company as this, I would always go the crafts way,’ the designer explains.

The project originated out of Newson’s passion for tea served the Chinese, ceremonial way, so it is fitting that the set (a limited edition of ten pieces, made to order) is ready in time to be served up as part of Georg Jensen’s Chinese renaissance. Chu sees the House of Jensen as an opportunity to create an artistic and creative hub in Beijing, contributing, along with the neighbouring gallery, to the cultural conversation in the city. ‘People interested in art, design and culinary innovation can come to experience the new Danish culture and design,’ Chu says. As an added bonus, he notes, having a lake in front of the building is considered good luck in China. ‘I am very excited about this opportunity: when things come together in the right time and the right place it is the right thing to do.’

As originally featured in the November 2015 issue of Wallpaper* (W*200)

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Georg Jensen website

ADDRESS

House of Jensen
No 1 Yard Jade River
No 45 Dong Bu Ya
Qiao Hutong
Dongcheng District
Beijing

VIEW GOOGLE MAPS

But to the science. This year we have restricted the core top 100 list strictly to product designers. And employing complex algorithms, ‘big data’ and the purest subjectivity, we have ranked them according to influence, market value, quality and quantity of output, reputational shift and that more mysterious sense of momentum, of rightness for right now. Those who have had a good year will find themselves risen up the ranks; others may get that sinking feeling. We have also added extra lists: of architects who turn their pencils to product design; of CEOs and other corporate chiefs who have matched vision and ambition with surefootedness; of graphic designers who snap our grid; of interior designers who create and compose the most seductive of spaces; and of designers yet to hit 40 but already making an impact. Or course our rankings are a provocation, but they are also a mapping of power and influence, of larger shifts and forces.

Let the debate begin...

Sir Jonathan Ive, Apple’s chief design officer, has changed behaviours and created ‘needs’ we never knew we had, turning technology’s cult underdog into the world’s most valuable company. With Steve Jobs gone, and everyone alert to the slightest Apple miss-step, Ive is now facing greater public scrutiny. The many and various permutations of the Apple Watch and strap, and the offer of a high-end version – a shift from Apple’s usual policy of limiting choice and upgrades to under-the-bonnet performance enhancements – are seen as Ive’s innovations. And rumours and counter-rumours about the Apple Watch’s success, or lack of, continue to swirl. The latest chatter is that Apple is working on a self-driving car, currently being tested in California.  

Outside of Ive, Marc Newson is the world’s highest-profile industrial designer. The pair are also long time pals. Little surprise then that Ive recruited Newson to help out with the design of Apple Watch. He has no official title at Apple but Newson says that 60 per cent of his time is now spent on Apple business and he makes monthly trips to Cupertino. Newson already had watch experience, launching the Ikepod line in the 1990s. He has also designed concept cars for Ford so it seems a relatively safe bet that Newson is currently at work on the Apple Car. And if the last year wasn’t eventful enough for Newson, this May one of his ‘Lockheed Lounge’ chairs sold at auction at Phillips in London for £2.4m, the highest price yet paid for the work of a living designer.

London-based designers Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby have had a breathtaking year, capped by the publication of a monograph celebrating their work, and the award of the 2015 London Design Medal in September. This supremely versatile and gifted pair have been on an unstoppable tear ever since their universally lauded design for the Olympic torch in 2012 lifted them into truly rarified air. The pair now helm three studios, each founded to expand the range of projects they can take on, ranging this year from an understated shower control for Axor to the contract to design interiors, exteriors and livery for the new London Crossrail line.

An Eindhoven Design Academy alumnus, Jongerius’ career began with the Droog-infused Dutch design renaissance of the early 1990s. Always one of the most influential and intelligent voices in design, she made waves in 2015 with a call for restraint in the design world’s ceaseless quest for the novel. ‘It’s time to rid ourselves of the obsession with the new.’ She practised what she preached, too, finally unveiling the long-awaited fruits of a four-year process of revisions to her iconic ‘Polder’ sofa for Vitra, and revealing subtle tweaks to the design and scale of the collection, while remaining true to its groundbreaking aesthetic.

Oki Sato took Milan by storm in April with an audacious retrospective of his work over a single year, showcasing his impressive range and attention to detail in collaborations with companies ranging from Glas Italia and Moroso to Chocolatexture and Tod’s. In fact, he designed more than 100 different products over the year, and routinely works on more than 400 designs at any one time. This year, Sato, who initially set up Nendo ten years ago with five fellow architecture graduates, also received the crown for Maison & Objet’s Designer of the Year, opened a Milan office, and shifted into large scale architectural projects for the first time, winning commissions for a shopping centre in Bangkok and a station and leisure complex in Kyoto.

Ronan and Erwan’s stellar mid-career status was highlighted last year with the award of the 2014 London Design Medal. Subsequently, France’s most influential industrial designers revealed the ‘Kaari’ table collection, their first collaboration with Artek, and the ‘Palissade’ range of outdoor furniture for Hay, alongside strong new work for Vitra and Glas Italia. Next up is their first electronic product, the Serif TV for Samsung, which is intended to integrate the television completely into the sphere of domestic design.

A product launch seen by 4.8 billion TV viewers, a first solo retrospective at the V&A, commissions everywhere; to say Heatherwick has had a good few years is an understatement. The British designer’s King’s Cross atelier is a global creative hub, responsible for everything from London buses to gin distilleries. Heatherwick is the quintessential contemporary creator, an architect, engineer and designer rolled into one, with an obsessive attention to detail and a delight in materials.

From health-tracking wristbands to app-controlled thermostats, Béhar is the designer for our perma-connected age. Last year, Chinese conglomerate BlueFocus Communication Group acquired a majority stake in his firm Fuseproject. His XO laptops for One Laptop Per Child are now distributed in 60 countries.

This year Morrison, whose career began in the 1980s, curated the prestigious ‘80!Molteni’ exhibition in Milan and added a collection of mobile phones to his well-respected Punkt collaboration, but he will always be the ultimate Super Normal guy, with a cool shop, transforming the everyday into desirable objects, including this cafetiere for Rowenta from W*068

Our joint Wallpaper* Designer of the Year, the work of German design superstar Grcic combines analytical rigour, formal discipline and a twist of humour. Recent projects include chairs for Plank and Magis, sanitaryware for Laufen, and branding and interiors for the Hugo Boss IMOCA 60 racing yacht.

A graduate of Jerusalem’s Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design and London’s Architectural Association, Arad is working on Tel Aviv’s tallest building, a show for the Royal Academy, and St Pancras’ sought-after Terrace Wires installation. He remains the design and architecture world’s great iconoclast

Despite his work for IDEO and the Muji CD player, Fukasawa’s sublime understanding of Japanese craft sensibility has few better expressions than last year’s ‘Cha’ tea kettle for Alessi, his ‘Roundish’ sofa for Maruni Wood Industries, this year’s kitchen appliances for Muji and his sleek smartphone model for KDDI.

Dixon remains one of Britain’s best-known design names, even outside the design community. His studio has been busy this year: working on apartments at Greenwich Peninsula and the Multiplex department store at Selfridges, and he has also just been secured by Caesarstone to work on a major collaboration

Hayon has long been revered for his radical embrace of colour, decoration and cartoon-figure curves. His recent highlights include a large ‘Urban Perspectives’ installation for Mini, sports-style pieces for Galerie Kreo, and a redesigned Room 506 at Arne Jacobsen’s SAS Royal Hotel in Copenhagen.

Collaborator Bruno Borrione finally got his name on the door last year as he and Starck formed a ‘new’ design agency, S++B. Since then, Stark has revealed a 2018 hotel design for Centre Pompidou Metz, created a prototype home for PATH and had various Milan launches with Kartell, Flos, Glas Italia, Axor, Magis and Tog

Humberto and Fernando’s creative upcycling and design improvisation – influenced by the street life of Santa Cecilia, the area of São Paulo where they have their studio – has been the basis of a string of bestsellers for Edra, as well as big-ticket edition pieces. The pair also work with local NGOs and workers’ co-ops.

The Spaniard is constantly proving she is at the top of her game with her hugely covetable creations. Not only is she our reigning Wallpaper* Designer of the Year, but she has formalised her ongoing collaboration with the Poltrona Frau group, heading up its design sector and becoming art director of Cassina.

Windows for Prada and a collection and installation for luxury leather maker Valextra helped demonstrate the versatility of Gamper, who made his name in 2007 with the found-object speed-design project ‘100 Chairs in 100 Days’. Milan gallery Nilufar then commissioned him to do similar with discarded Giò Ponti pieces.

Milan-based Giovannoni is as adept at futuristic furniture as at cartoonish homewares. His ‘Bombo’ stool for Magis, with its swivelling plastic seat and adjustable chrome-steel base, is widely copied, and his ‘Girotondo’ tableware for Alessi has sold over ten million units. He is now opening an office in Shenzhen.

Born in 1932, Munich-based designer Maurer designed his first light fitting in 1966 after a life-changing trip to New York, where he encountered the pop art movement. Simply called ‘Bulb’, his debut design was a brilliantly witty take on what a lamp could be and marked the start of a legendary career

This year, industrial designer Lovegrove - pictured here in W*101 - has applied his ergonomic forms to photorealistic rug designs for Moooi, while 2014 saw him produce 3D-printed gold jewellery for the Louisa Guinness Gallery. Material science, form and technology dominate, as with Liquidkristal, an architectural glass designed for Lasvit

Following Charpin’s takeover of Apartment 50 in Le Corbusier’s Cité Radieuse in Marseille last year, he has now commandeered the Robert Mallet-Stevens-designed Villa Noailles in Hyères for a new show. Last month also saw the opening of an exhibition of his tables and ceramic vases at Galerie Kreo’s London outpost.

This year’s Wallpaper* Design Awards judges, Lyndon Neri and Rossana Hu combine city block-sized projects with more delicate small-scale work, garnering design awards and commissions from Camper, De La Espada and Le Méridien, as well as creating a clutch of boutique hotels, flagship offices and private dwellings

Häberli credits his motivation to his Argentine upbringing, and his problem-solving abilities to his Swiss heritage. He became a star for his ‘Origo’ dinner service for Iittala in 1999, and has gone on to work for brands such as Moroso and Georg Jensen. This year, he was chosen by BMW to design its annual Milan installation.

Hays is the driving force behind luxury American furniture label BDDW. Based in Philadelphia, he is as much an entrepreneur as he is a designer, having built the company up from a small Brooklyn start-up to a respected handmade furniture empire, with a Milan outpost and its own general store, within ten years

The soft, rounded forms of Dutch designer Bakker’s everyday objects are carefully crafted in metal, wood, glass and ceramic, often the result of painstaking production processes. His delicate forms found the limelight in Amsterdam this summer with a solo exhibition, ‘Containing Content’, focusing on his pourers (pictured)

Twins Nikolai and Simon began life as Texan builders with a Hollywood twist, but their skill and experimental approach saw them branch out into design at the turn of the decade. Now based in LA, the brothers’ new surrealist style graces spaces like the city’s Ace Hotel and the Guerlain store in Paris.

Pictured: Beast stool.

An alumnus of the Alchymia, Cavart and Memphis movements, De Lucchi is an Italian design legend whose work graces museums across the globe. He is responsible for bestsellers like the ‘Tolomeo’ lamp for Artemide, and the ‘First’ chair for Memphis. His new coffee maker for Alessi looks set to join that pantheon

From Peckham bottle recycler to Design Miami jury member, designer Boontje, known for his craft-inspired ideas, has come a long way, and his ‘Garland’ light shades are now a modern classic. He recently developed a jewellery collection for the Van Gogh Museum. Next up is an exciting commission for PostNL.

Pictured: Boontje's 'Chamber of Wonder' exhibition, at Swarovski Crystal World in Wattens, Austria

British artist Anthea Hamilton made international news last month with an installation inspired by a 1972 model by Pesce. Now 75, the Venetian designer’s career spans over half a century, and he has always ensured that his colourful, often otherworldly designs go beyond function and aesthetics

Milanese architect Dordoni has spent his career designing and providing art direction for some of the biggest players in Italian design – Artemide, Cappellini, Minotti and Foscarini have all benefited from his creative input. More recently, he set up Dordoni Architetti to focus on his architectural projects.

London-based design duo Luke Pearson and Tom Lloyd have become the go-to practice for public-realm design, with past projects including innovative healthcare furniture for the NHS and street furniture for the city of Bath. Recent projects include a contemporary workplace furniture collection for Teknion

Renowned for his refined designs and forthright opinions, the godfather of Italian design has had a consistent and influential presence in the industry for over 50 years. A steadfast supporter of sustainable, open-source design and small-scale, local production, Mari’s principles have always been years ahead of their time.

Pictured: W*090

Belgian-Dutch duo Nynke Tynagel and Job Smeets continue to explore the boundaries between art and design. From a roller disco inside Buenos Aires’ Faena Art Centre (pictured) to the irreverent ‘Banana Show’ lights at Belgium’s Samuel Vanhoegaerden Gallery, the pair’s refreshing maximalism was prominently on display

Last year, Lissoni secured a major commission from Ritz-Carlton to create a waterfront complex in Miami and a minimalist setting for a Renaissance art show in Milan. This year, he presented ‘1:1 Piero Lissoni’, an exhibition held in a vast New York loft in collaboration with a host of Brooklyn design studios

Branzi’s ‘Heretical Design’ show at Italy’s MARCA museum reminded commentators of the designer’s astonishing breadth and fecundity. He is a frequent collaborator with architectural magazines such as Domus and Casabella, and his shelving systems continue to attract the plaudits of a younger generation

De Cotiis’ work ranges from interiors for T’a bistrot in Milan, and the Upper Hills development in Shenzhen, to furniture for Ceccotti and his own label Progetto Domestico. Last year, he opened a gallery in Milan, and launched a limited-edition series inspired by Beirut in collaboration with Carwan Gallery

Conny Freyer, Eva Rucki and Sebastien Noel formed Troika in 2003. Their installations blend techno-longing with video and interactive elements, and grace spaces from Heathrow’s T5 to major galleries. Recent work, like Dark Matter and Limits of a Known Territory (pictured), show a more brooding, sculptural side

The London-based Cypriot has taken his first proper dip into furniture this year, designing a sofa for SCP. Boasting a similar geometrical characteristic to his captivating lighting objects for Flos, the long-time Wallpaper* collaborator has shown he can master both delicate precision and a sturdy framework.

Woodgate has brought his pared-down sophistication to the likes of Cappellini and SCP. He drew international attention in 2008 with his ‘Surface’ table for Established & Sons, and in 2014 he crowdfunded his lighting brand to produce a collection optimised for LEDs, including the ‘Core’ pendant in translucent marble

Stefan Scholten and Carole Baijings epitomise Dutch design diversity, creating fabrics and furnishings in an eclectic array of forms and colours for the likes of Hay and Moooi. This year they have released their first book, Reproducing Scholten & Baijings (pictured), which takes us on a journey of their creative development

A graduate of Jerusalem’s Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Gilad is one of those rare designers able to work with ease across varying scales of output, from limited editions to mass production. He even managed to reinvent the showroom with an inspired and witty conversion for Molteni & C in Brianza.

Sam Hecht and Kim Colin founded their London studio in 2002 and have since turned conceiving the beautifully useful into an art form. Their reputation rests on creating a few simple product designs, with a twist, each year for the likes of Muji, Droog, Herman Miller, Issey Miyake, and Established & Sons

Tokyo-based interior designer Katayama is head of Japanese firm Wonderwall, which strides across the globe from one hi-tech Uniqlo store to another, creating art-cum-retail projects like Ginza’s Comme des Garçons store, and a chocolate-bar ceiling for the café at Meiji, Japan’s largest chocolate company, along the way

The enfant terrible of Italian product design is never happier than when he is pushing the boundaries of taste. Recent work includes a hyper-masculine headquarters for his beloved AC Milan football team (pictured) and a much instagrammed, model-kit installation for Tommy Hilfiger at Milan’s La Rinascente store.

Wanders’ work ranges from breakfast pieces for Alessi to upscale interiors for the Mondrian South Beach hotel. The studio recently opened an appointment-only gallery space at its HQ in Westerstraat, housing the Dutchman’s collectable designs (which will set you back the best part of $40,000 at auction)

Baas has parlayed a winning way with colour-impregnated clay into a design empire, under his own name and, since 2012, as part of the entity DH PH. Despite this, he’s not too kooky to win awards, create iPhone apps or see his ‘Grandfather Clock Veneer’ sold by Phillips de Pury & Company New York for over $134,000

Focusing on sustainability, and characterised by robust raw materials and expressive lines, Motta’s furniture celebrates the exuberant energy of his native Brazil, and speaks to his passion for surfing, yoga and nature. This autumn he marks the 40th year of his career with a retrospective at New York gallery Espasso.

Pictured with Leandro Massarelli, June 2010, W*135. 

Tokyo-based designer Yoshioka creates installations exploring balance and transparency for clients like Swarovski and Cartier, while products for Glas Italia and boutiques for Issey Miyake (pictured) take more substantial forms. This year he held his first solo exhibition in Kyushu, at the newly renovated Saga Prefectural Museum

Born in Israel, educated in Switzerland and based in Paris, Levy’s vast resumé of work spans lighting, jewellery, graphic design, furniture and packaging. This year he added something new to the list, working with bentwood for the first time in a collection produced for Salone for the Czech company TON. 

Pictured: W*109

An apprentice of Michele De Lucchi for more than 11 years, Nigro is barely 40 but has already won the Designer of the Year award at Maison & Objet and designed collections for the likes of Ligne Roset, De Padova and Hermès (pictured). For this year’s Salone he created the scenography for Japanese car company Lexus

From traditional cabinetmaker to sought-after product designer, Diez’s career ranges from hi-tech manufacturing all the way through to contemporary kit furniture. The German designer - pictured W*158 -  has created products for Thonet, Moroso, Established & Sons, Hay and Emu, all of which share his trademark pared-down precision

Italian architect and designer Thun’s progressive, sustainably luxurious interiors are taking over the civilised world. This year saw the launch of Matteo Thun Atelier, devoted to handcrafted design, with a collection in glass and ceramic, as well as an island resort in Venice for Marriott, designed inside and out by Thun, pictured here

For more than a decade, New York-based designer Burks has pursued his ongoing fascination with the transformative potential of design in emerging economies. This plus stellar work with brands such as Roche Bobois, Dedon, Ligne Roset, Boffi and Swarovski saw him rewarded with a prestigious Cooper Hewitt National Design Award this year

Navone spent her early career working with Italian design doyens such as Ettore Sottsass and Alessandro Mendini. Her dedication to the craft of design is reflected in her lively work for brands ranging from Gervasoni and Crate & Barrel to Ercol, with whom she launched a seating collection this year, pictured here

A graduate of industrial design school ENSCI, Sempé - pictured here W*151 - is known for her versatility and lightness of touch. Since opening her studio in 2000, she has established long-term relationships with firms such as Ligne Roset and Wästberg. Her first cutlery collection, Collo-alto for Alessi, launched in Paris this year to rave reviews

Since his breakthrough in 2002 with the outlandish interiors for London restaurant Sketch, Duchaufour-Lawrance’s work has included identities for Air France and Yves Saint Laurent cosmetics, as well as furniture for Bernhardt Design and Ceccotti Collezioni, and lighting for Baccarat and Gaia & Gino.

Wired from the outset thanks to early chandelier collaborations with Ron Arad, Hussein Chalayan and Zaha Hadid, Waldemeyer’s work has tracked the LED’s rise as a source of entertainment. His technical background helps keep him on the cutting edge, with installations ranging from the wearable to the truly immersive

His latest monograph features a preface by Tom Ford and a forward by Zaha Hadid, but with a career that spans more than 60 years, the German-born Kagan has plenty of famous admirers to call upon. A prolific midcentury furniture designer with a sinuous style, this year he added a must-read blog to his many talents

Kitchen-design genius Wangen first turned heads with Boffi’s ‘K2’ monoblock, with a steel top that concealed the cooking system and slid out to become a dining table. He is currently reviving this own line with the minimalist ‘Forever’ kitchen, and he co-designed The Flushing Meadows Hotel & Bar, opened in Munich last year.

Hong Kong-based since 2006, Young has successfully married Chinese manufacturing capacity to his refined Old World design aesthetic. This combination is seen to best effect in his watch ranges, in his re-engineered Moke beach buggy and this year’s James Irvine-inspired ‘Chelsea Boy’ glass for WonderGlass.

Increasingly, the success of Jouin’s interior design agency JouinMankin is pulling him away from product design. His two-year refurbishment of a Saint-Lazare priory was shortlisted for a Wallpaper* Design Award, while the latest incarnation of his Rivea restaurant for Alain Ducasse opens in Las Vegas next month

Another year, another Red Dot award for Massaud, for a work chair and ottoman series for Coalesse. In recent years, the French designer has also completed some ambitious architectural projects and, for this year’s Salone, his first perfume as part of Brera’s Garden of Wonders exhibition (pictured)

The designs of Patrik Fredrikson and Ian Stallard sit in foyers, museums, stores, restaurants, hotels and private collections around the world, a sensuous fusion of form and rigour. At this year’s London Design Festival, the duo marked ten years since their first major collection with new pieces for David Gill Gallery, pictured here

The husband-and-wife team celebrated 21 years of their design partnership Palomba Serafini this year. The pair turn their hand to everything from lamps and bathtubs to super yachts, and recently completed the first standalone Kartell by Laufen showroom, in Milan, in part to showcase their own collection

Texan designer Hunt founded her eponymous company in 1984, and it went on to become one of America’s finest design brands, collaborating with the likes of Lindsey Adelman and Christian Astuguevieille. In 2014, Knoll acquired Holly Hunt enterprises for $95m, starting a new chapter in the history of the brand.

Pictured: 'Angelika’ sofa

Hutten set up his studio in 1991, joining the Droog collective two years later. His work follows a ‘no sign of design’ notion, making for functional objects permeated by a playful, conceptual attitude, and features in the permanent collections of museums such as the Stedelijk in Amsterdam and the Vitra Design Museum

Having worked as a model and bag designer for Raf Simons, Verheyden veered into home accessories in 2009 with his wife, Saartje Vereecke. His simple forms allow his rich materials to speak for themselves, and encourage users to appreciate the rituals of daily life. Collaborators include Joseph Dirand and Rick Owens.

Anglo-Indian duo Jonathan Levien and Nipa Doshi draw inspiration globally. Standout pieces include a cabinet for BD Barcelona that nods to the corrugated roofs of shanty dwellings and an armchair for Hay structured like a Japanese hand fan. They also rebranded cosmetics label Madina.

Pillet honed his skills with Michele de Lucchi and Philippe Starck before setting up his own studio. Along with curvaceous furnishings for the likes of Modus, Porro and Tacchini, he has also created sumptuous spaces for hotels in France (pictured is his makeover of Hotel Pullman Paris Eiffel Tower) and Morocco, and transformed Lancel’s retail presence around the world

Industrial designer Rasmussen is brand director at Neal Feay, which specialises in anodised aluminium creations. The firm has collaborated with the likes of Louis Vuitton, Dior and Design Miami, and most recently produced a digitalised ocean wave for this year’s London Design Festival at Somerset House, pictured

Working under the studio name Ora ïto, Ito Morabito has amassed a portfolio as substantive as that of any French designer. His re-imagining of the rooftop gym of Le Corbusier’s Cité Radieuse into art space MAMO made him the natural choice to design Cassina’s beautiful LC50 tribute to the architect for D’Days 2015 in Paris.

Having given Dutch Design capital letters, Droog has grown into a mini-empire. Co-founder Renny Ramakers opened the one-bedroom Hotel Droog concept in Amsterdam in 2012, a store and gallery in Hong Kong in 2013 and published an anthology last year. In 2015, her mini hardware store concept turned heads at Salone

Furniture is rarely as refined as that created by Fien Muller and Hannes Van Severen, with their rigorously austere pieces evolving naturally out of their creative backgrounds (his in sculpture, hers in photography). A colourful furniture and lighting collection for London’s Viaduct gallery this year hinted at a future direction.

Grawunder worked with Ettore Sottsass before going solo in 2001. She designs installations, interiors and objects, as well as pieces for the likes of Glas Italia and Boffi. She has a light installation at Robert, at the Museum of Art and Design in New York, and has had solo shows at Paris’ Carpenters Workshop Gallery.

Gitta Gschwendtner’s ‘Chair Bench’, which unites six iconic chairs from different eras and matches up their tops and bottoms randomly, is emblematic of her experimental approach to furniture. She has also designed exhibitions and is contributing to a new cancer centre for Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital in London

Parisian legend Pergay (sitting on the far left) continues to create in her eighties. She defined hi-luxe design before the current generation was even born (Dior, Hermès, Pierre Cardin and Fendi were all early adopters), and her vast back catalogue of curvaceous stainless steel designs has never been more coveted on the international auction circuit

Founded in 2006, the studio of Ralph Nauta and Lonneke Gordijn creates poetic works that tap into technology and nature. The duo’s Shylight installation at the Rijksmuseum, pictured, is shortlisted for a Dutch Design Award, while their kinetic glass installation for this year’s Venice Art Biennale explored human’s desire to fly

A furniture collection for Arflex Japan saw the quintessentially luxe designer experimenting with high-tech modelling systems to elegant effect. A former head of visual communications for Louis Vuitton, he set up his studio in 2000, creating crisply detailed interiors for the likes of Tacchini, Glas Italia and Ethimo

The line-up might change more often than a 1970s prog rock band (the studio started as a foursome in 2004, became a trio in 2009, and turned duo in 2014) but the work continues to intrigue. They bring a strong playful sensibility to their designs, creating products for the likes of Moooi, Thonet, Kartell, Moroso and Porro

The radical oeuvre of Israeli-born Benshetrit includes the shattered and reassembled ‘Vase of Phases’ for Rosenthal, and the brilliantly plumed ‘Peacock Chair’ for Cappellini. He also created an island of luxury residences in Abu Dhabi, the chic SoHo Synagogue in Manhattan, and is venturing into skyscraper design

Craig Bassam and Scott Fellows are masters of understated luxury. Their eponymous furniture line unites modernist architectural principles and artisanal production, and they have also collaborated with Bally, Herman Miller and Geiger. The duo launched a lifestyle gallery in Milan last year, and recently introduced a clothing collection, pictured

Stylist and designer Toogood imagined two opposite set-ups at this year’s London Design Festival – a cloakroom containing 150 compressed foam coats at the V&A, pictured, and a redrafted drawing room at Somerset House. Her client list includes Hermès, Tom Dixon and Comme des Garçons

Crafted in copper, hand-blown glass, brass and knotted rope, Adelman’s lighting designs have evoked everything from celestial bodies to sea creatures. The Manhattanite takes a hands-on approach and this summer created a music video to showcase her latest collection

The Brazilian designer spent his formative years working with Sergio Rodrigues before opening his studio in 2011. Recently named Maison & Objet Americas Designer of the Year 2015, he works mainly in wood and metal, producing furniture for his eponymous brand. This year saw new pieces in wood for Espasso (pictured) and his first monograph

Chan set up lighting design studio Isometrix in 1984. With a rare grasp of lighting technology, he has enhanced spaces such as Georges at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, The Wolseley in London, The Gramercy Park Hotel in New York, pictured, and The Upper House in Hong Kong. Among his collaborators are Jean Nouvel and Zaha Hadid.

Borrowing from a medieval armour-making technique, RCA graduate Hasan developed an acclaimed furniture range in hardened leather, which then translated into a Wallpaper* Handmade project with Poltrona Frau and a mannequin project for Fendi. He has also collaborated with Kvadrat and British interiors brand Linley

French designer Matali Crasset’s showstopping offering at this year’s Salone was the mobile ‘Self-made’ seat for Campeggi, which reimagined the sofa as a series of individual modules that could be carried like suitcases. She followed that up with a tabletop set that included impossibly understated, sycamore plates

A pioneer in the integration of technology and domestic design, French designer Lehanneur was this year appointed head of the Paris-based Aesthetics Research Centre of Chinese telecoms giant Huawei, the world’s third largest smartphone manufacturer. A 20-sided wireless speaker for Binauric was another 2015 coup.

Pictured: an otherworldly set for Audemars Piguet at Art Basel 2014

Making everyday objects special, Bergne’s hits include his ‘Dizzy’ glass, with a conical base that gives a spinning effect, and the stackable and infinitely adaptable ‘Square’ chair for Tog. His broad output also includes a hot milk service for culinary think-tank Milk Factory, and the torch for 2015’s first ever European Games in Baku, Azerbaijan

Alonso’s work (stackable steel cutlery for Italesse, reclaimed wood chairs for the V&A and folding tables for Cos and Hay) belie his intellectual design process. He creates products that are understated, poetic and functional, and was one of the winners of this year’s Swarovski Designers of the Future Award.

Midwesterner Bernett’s foray into design began with a chance encounter with Le Corbusier’s ‘LC4’. His ‘Metropolitan’ and ‘Tulip’ for B&B Italia, pictured, which pay homage to Ejnar Larsen and Eero Saarinen, are among the best selling chairs in the US. He has also worked for Cappellini, Ligne Roset and Design Within Reach

Marigold is best known for artfully awry shelves assembled from branches and crates, and metal homewares that take on wooden patterns. His eclectic client list ranges from Oyuna to Paul Smith and Sony, and recent work includes bowls and cups for Meissen, and galvanised steel shelving for SCP.

Pictured: Split series, 2007

Azambourg has put himself at the forefront of material technology with fibre-optic lamps for Galerie Kreo, a leather-and-foam briefcase for Hermès weighing only 700g, and seating for Cappellini created with the same techniques as Bugatti racing cars. He recently launched his own label, Auto-Edition

Bracher trained in New York and Copenhagen, led Tom Dixon’s design studio and was then creative director for Georg Jensen. Cindy Crawford’s beauty mark informed his ‘Tod’ table for Zanotta. Having lent his talents to Herman Miller, Humanscale and 3M, he is now lauded as the future of American design

Slovenian product and interior designer Zupanc’s work is witty, visually delightful and pristine. Her commissions include Moooi and Moroso, and her ongoing collaboration with Sè was unveiled in Milan last year and expanded with new pieces in 2015. She also has her own brand of precious and whimsical furniture

Willenz, who founded his Brussels studio in 2004, has an industrial, minimalist style, making him a favourite of Established & Sons, Cappellini and Hay. This year he worked with marble brand Retegui on a series of mirrors (pictured), shelves and accessories, and created bold, geometric rugs for Ligne Roset, Menu and Nodus

Vivid colour is the signature of Italian designer Lenti, who founded her eponymous company in 1994 after training in graphics. Cheerful forms and high-tech fabrics (often designed in-house) have made her one of the most sought-after names in garden furniture. She has just released a line of rugs with Maharam

De la Fontaine trained with Richard Sapper and worked with Piero Lissoni and Patricia Urquiola before founding design collective Dante-Goods and Bads with his wife Aylin Langreuter in 2012 (pictured is a table from the brand). He has also worked for Rosenthal, among others, for whom his timeless ‘Format’ collection remains a best seller

Stockholm-based Italian designer Nichetto has worked for a host of major brands. His impressive 2015 output includes the ‘Nick’ bed for Molteni & C (pictured), the ‘Plass’ light for Foscarini and silvered-glass side tables for Verreum, all shown in Milan, plus an installation of new lamps for Swedish company Hem at the London Design Festival

Park’s poetic pieces are crafted from slabs of translucent resin, tinged in block colours and seamlessly joined, providing a thoughtful meditation on purity and ambiguity. The South Korean designer splits his time between Rotterdam and Paris, where he recently had a solo show at Carpenter’s Workshop Gallery, pictured

For the first time in over a century, Montblanc has handed over the design of one of its product to an external collaborator. Designed by Marc Newson, the latest Montblanc M pen is both a celebration of the German company’s heritage. ‘Our passion for the art of writing is in the very heart of the project,’ says Montblanc CEO Jerome Lambert, who commissioned Newson to work on the project.

The resulting object is an elegant balance of form and function, with a sleek silhouette that incorporates Montblanc’s signature elements into a contemporary piece. Newson’s design also includes subtle aesthetic and engineering details – such as the magnetic closure of the cap so its clip aligns perfectly with the Montblanc emblem at the other end (it’s also the first time a second emblem has featured in a contemporary pen, alongside the one on the cap).

‘Like a lot of people doing my job, we use pens all the time, and pens are the way that I choose to connect with the world,’ explains Newson, noting how the art of using writing instruments itself was the inspiration for his design 'It’s the thing that enables me to take my thoughts and bring them to reality.’

Originally featured in the September 2015 edition of Wallpaper* (W*198)

When we look at design, versatility is key for us, so we're rather alert to designers branching out from the product world into untapped territory.

Marc Newson designing a gun for Beretta is one of the better executed, if unexpected, collaborations of the year, reaffirming both the designer's creative flexibility and the Italian gunmaker's ability to adapt to modernity while maintaining its 500-year identity.

The new '486 Parallelo' is a contemporary update of a traditional side-by-side hunting shotgun, with a new walnut bridge making the design and user experience more seamless than ever. It is certainly an elite item few will appreciate – least of all the subtle but revolutionary design of the safety catch, which makes Newson's design unique and groundbreaking in its simplicity. Recently unveiled in London, the firearm made its debut alongside a short film by Ancarani Studio, 'Human Technology', celebrating the genesis of a Beretta shotgun.

As with every Beretta firearm, the 486 includes an intricate engraving, inspired by Japanese scrollmakers. Newson, who wanted to pay tribute to hunts in the Scottish highlands with this shotgun, uses his engraving to explain how pheasants were introduced into Europe from the Far East.

Although gunmaking might sound like a bold departure from his now-iconic product design, Newson says he is most enthusiastic when he immersed in a variety of disciplines, fields and industries. 'I am interested in the way things work - it's a technical obsession,' he says, adding that his versatility has found him recently in the luxury fashion world, designing a piece for Louis Vuitton's Iconoclasts collection, and collaborating earlier this year with tech giant Apple as part of Jonathan Ive's design team.

ADDRESS

Beretta Gallery
36 St James's St
London SW1A 1JD

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'For a long time I dreamed of having a beautiful pen at Hermès,' says Pierre-Alexis Dumas, the company's artistic director. Hermès has always produced agendas, but not writing instruments. And as electronic communications increasingly predominate, Dumas believes it is more important than ever to support the act of writing.

'This is an encouragement to remember the pleasure of using one's hands,' he explains. 'It is through writing that we can explore our thoughts or even go further.'

Dumas hired Marc Newson to design the pen. When the two discovered a mutual admiration for Pilot, they asked the Japanese pen maker to produce it.

Following three years of creative and technical development, Hermès launches the 'Nautilus' pen (fountain and ballpoint) and a range of writing objects this September. Crafted from aluminium and steel, the smooth, cap-less instrument comes in colours of ebony, H red or carbon blue. A rotating mechanism makes the gold and iridium nib disappear with a touch of the hand.

Wallpaper* talked to Marc Newson about getting his design off the drawing board...

Wallpaper*: How did you get involved in this project?
Marc Newson: Pierre-Alexis asked me if I would be interested in designing a pen, and obviously I said yes. I'm a pen obsessive person, because that's what I use, that's my thing. But it was the type of object, which made everybody very nervous, because you don't want to get it wrong. Doing a pen and not doing it properly is just horrible, especially for a company like Hermès.

And for you?
Yeah, and for me. I'd never done one.

Can you explain what's happening inside this pen?
The retractable fountain pen nib is something that Pilot invented in the 1950s. It was also the type of pen that I had been using since living in Japan. Pierre-Alexis and I both loved it. I think we wanted to take it and reinvent it into a new iconic object. We did this little turning thing (he demonstrates how the nib retracts on its own). It doesn't seem like much, but it is, trying to contain all that in this tight little package and make it work every time.

What about the aesthetics?
It's an object that you can put on a table and look at, sort of ponder and play with it. It compels you to want to touch it, which is good, because if you don't have a tactile relationship with your pen then you're never going to use it. There's a strange biomorphic quality as well. 'Nautilus' is a shell, so there's this idea of a coque with this carapace made from a solid piece of aluminium. It's not an assemblage of things, the whole thing is actually machined. And the colour is applied with a chemical process called anodisation. It's an ink that's impregnated the surface of the metal.

What's the difference between designing a pen and designing a car or a chair?
Designing any object, you exercise the same muscles. It's the same métier, even if the materials change, the scale changes, the parameters are different. But the thing about a pen is that - at least for me - it's where it all starts. It's my interface with the world on a creative level. So it's lovely to be involved in such an unexpected kind of exercise.

Don't be fooled by the historic Flemish-style terracotta and brick façade of Fendi's New Bond street maison. Past the storefront's classical pillars, the brand's Roman roots have been laid down in Travertine (Italy's 'monument' material of choice), together with plenty of bronze accents and stone 'paving', to round out the palazzo feel. The three-storey concept has been masterminded by the French-born, Japan-based Gwenaël Nicolas, using a chromatic architectural style, which centres around a spiral staircase and waterfall chandelier, designed by the Fendi studio and composed of 5,600 pieces of Murano glass.

'A Million Times 72', a digital 'clock' by Humans Since 1982 (featured in our May issue, W*182), greets patrons on the ground floor, and from there the art focus extends in all directions with a range of furnishings designed by the Campana brothers, French architect Thierry Lemaire, artist Massimiliano Locatelli and designer Marc Newson. Many of these pieces in fact feature in either Nicolas or Silvia Fendi's own homes.

The flagship also debuts the brand's new gentleman's apartment concept that houses Fendi's entire menswear collection for the first time. Other unique features include a dedicated fur salon, VIP dressing room, made-to-order bag service, and Baguette Wall installation, composed of some 30,000 bronze spikes. Elsewhere on the walls, photographs of Roman fountains, taken by creative director Karl Lagerfeld for the 'Glory of Water' project, complete the grandiose residence.  

ADDRESS

Fendi
141 New Bond Street
London
UK 

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After several years of dormancy on the gallery circuit, Marc Newson has returned with a bang with the staging of his first solo exhibition stateside at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Presented at the museum's Perelman Building, 'Marc Newson: At Home' brings together a comprehensive array of Newson's best known, one-off and hypothetical creations in a domestic setting.

Laid out like rooms in a home, the exhibition has rounded up pieces from Europe, Asia and Marc Newson's own collection that date across the last thirty years. In the kitchen, the Australian designer's iconic 'Dish Doctor' dish rack for Magis (1998) stands opposite his Strelka cutlery set for Alessi (2001) and his porcelain in-flight service for Qantas Airlines' A380 (2008). In the bedroom, the Bumper bed (2013), finally produced by luxury craftsmen Domeau & Peres, is flanked by a rail of colourful clothing from the designer's collaboration with G-Star, each hanging on an orange 'Hercules' coat hanger (1997), and a rare version of the Black Hole Chop Top desk (1993), which fetched £99,650 at auction in 2011.

The garage offers a rare view of two prototypes - a concept car for Ford and his MN Bicycle for the Danish biking company, Biomega, which both reveal Newson's futuristic view of technology despite the fact that they were designed in 1999.

'The show tries to balance Marc Newson's iconic works with lesser-known pieces, all in the context of the domestic interiors we've created,' explained the show's curator Kathryn Hiesinger. '[Newson's] use of simple continuous silhouettes allows the viewer and user to understand the object at a glance, while bright colours, unusual materials and technical processes enrich the visual experience.'

In each room, Newson's fluid, ergonomic style manifests itself in various forms. His limited-edition pieces such as the aluminum and steel 'Lockheed Lounge' chaise (1985) and the futuristic 'Diode Floor Lamp' (2007), are thrillingly un-restrained, and while his Pentax K-01 camera (2012) and 'Scope' luggage range for Samsonite (2004) are much more commercial, they are directional and impactful all the same. It is this inspired versatility to tackle objects both big and small that makes Newson a true icon and this show is a worthy summation of his career to date.

ADDRESS

Philadelphia Museum of Art
2600 Benjamin Franklin Pkwy
Philadelphia
PA 19130

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When an artist suddenly switches hats and digs enthusiastically into a new, unchartered métier, the results can be oddly uneven or dizzyingly satisfying.  Happily, the latter is the case of a group of architects, artists and furniture designers who have recently broken out - with jazz hands, no less - onto the unfamiliar stage of jewellery design. 

Coaxed out of their usual creative boxes by the Galerie Kreo, Paris' leading design gallery, contemporary furniture and industrial designers like Marc Newson, Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec, Jaime Hayon, Hella Jongerius and Naoto Fukasawa, have all made jewellery, produced in limited editions, for the first time.

Jewellery designer Dominique Modiano and furniture designer Martin Szekely, who has collaborated in the past with Hermès, were the only two artists who had previously confronted the jewellery oeuvre.

The gallery also asked its artist friends, whose work they don't normally represent, to take part in the project: Constance Guisset, Tatiana Trouvé, Annette Messager, Fabrice Hyber, and Dominique Perrault all jumped on board. The brief to all 20 participants was, quite simply, to design a piece of jewellery to be worn around the neck. The rest was up to the artist. 

While many chose to work in gold - the industry standard - some leapt into the creative freedom with hemp rope wood, rough diamonds or polished onyx. Regardless of the materials, the results - like necklaces that swing from the ears by Constance Guisset, or tiny gold threads tumbled into a mass of knots by Lee Ufan - were all original.   

Currently part of a Galerie Kreo exhibition entitled 'Autour du Cou' or, 'Around the Neck', the pieces are offered in limited editions and will be on view until 19 January.

A judge for our Awards issue (W*119), Mr Newson is an indubitable innovator on the front line of the contemporary design scene.

Consequently, his enduringly successful collaborative relationship with urban brand G-Star, comes as little surprise.

See more of Marc Newson's range for G-Star

Over the course of the past six years, Newson has produced several collections for G-Star with increasing international notoriety.

The latest monochromatic collection was launched this month from top Parisian boutique, Collette, in conjunction with Paris Fashion Week.

Known for an ‘architectonic approach’ to clothing design, G-Star’s urban luxury lends itself well to Newson’s constructed, geometric creative method – clean lines, raw materials and intricate craftsmanship take precedence on both sides.

The new collection features 5 black outer-garments for men, and 4 white outer-garments for women, produced from materials ranging from wool and leather to laminated Gore-tex.

100 pieces of each style will be available from various international retailers - so you had better get your skates on, we’re betting that they won’t be around for along.