With a new collection, New York jeweller Jean Prounis, deep-dives into a particular design epoch that shaped her hometown’s skyline, art and culture. Called ‘Moderne’, the collection is a tribute to the art deco era, expressed in 22-carat yellow gold, rock crystal, heirloom diamonds and other colourful gems.

Previously, Prounis, who is a trained goldsmith and gifted designer, had looked to ancient artefacts – among them Etruscan, Greek and Roman – for creative stimulus. For ‘Moderne’, the designer and her team stayed closer to the Manhattan address of their showroom, and to recent history, researching pochoir prints – a technique of adding layers of gouache paint to stencils – at the New York Public Library. They also looked at New York City architecture, and at archival creations by Cartier and Maison Fouquet. ‘I really wanted to explore that period in New York,’ says Prounis, who set up her eponymous business in 2017.

There is also a more personal motivation for Prounis to look at the art deco period, which spanned from the 1910s to the 1930s. It was in 1936 that her great-grandfather Otto Prounis co-opened Versailles, a hot-spot nightclub that was located opposite the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York. Outfitted with sage-green silk tablecloths, custom silver cutlery and hand-gouached menus, Versailles hosted performers including Bob Hope and Edith Piaf.

‘This is a completely new direction for Prounis,’ the designer says of ‘Moderne’. ‘It has a much more contemporary reference point of the early 20th century and mostly New York. That came about from me being interested in exploring my great-grandparents' nightclub, and what came before that period that brought about such stately visuals.’ Crafted by hand in Manhattan’s jewellery district, Prounis’ new offering includes a long sautoir-style necklace in jade, frosted rock crystal, or red jasper. Tassels – or brushes, as Prounis refers to the tactile feature – are a theme, as are square-shaped diamonds, in particular Asscher and carré cuts, that stem from the art deco period, sourced by a gem expert. One old mine diamond sits at the centre of Prounis’ ‘Rosemary’ ring, a geometric design inspired by a ring that the designer’s great-grandmother once wore.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Forty years ago, when I first walked down Bleecker Street into the East Village, I thought the old shopfront building where sculptor June Leaf and her husband, photographer Robert Frank, lived and worked to be in keeping with everything about being a certain kind of artist in New York in the 1980s. It wasn't a glass-walled palace or a post-pop classical abstraction, but a fragment of the old city, a vestigial note on a block that, yes, you saw in Jim Jarmusch's Stranger Than Paradise, but also that Melville or Poe might have passed, or even Edith Wharton if her horse-drawn carriage driver had gotten lost. After all, the Federal-style house was built in 1817 when Bleecker Street was still mostly field, though the address had developed a questionable reputation as early as the Civil War. By the 1960s, it was deemed a flophouse.

Leaf and Frank first rented a room there (for $48) in the late 1970s, and eventually managed to buy it, initially with the help of a California couple who later pulled out of the deal, the area apparently being too rough. From then on, the old brick building – its moss green-painted shopfront sporting a fire escape and shaded by a lonely locust tree – was a bulwark against all the forces that were against cities and, in a way, against the artists who worked in them. Or so it seemed to me. And when, at some point in the late 1980s, I once saw Frank sitting outside the place, on a folding chair, I felt as if he were not just studying the street but standing guard.

Frank died in 2019, aged 94, and five years later, when I was invited to meet Leaf and see her studio, I was struck by the realisation that, from a chair on the kerb, her husband could see inside to where she was working, and that, if she wanted, she could see him, too. It dawned on me that the building wasn't a fortress at all. It was a machine, or an engine, a site where, for more than half a century, June Leaf worked on dreams.

Born in Chicago in 1929, Leaf briefly studied at the New Bauhaus (now the Institute of Design), founded by László Moholy-Nagy, followed by a stint in Paris on a Fulbright scholarship. In 1960, she moved to New York, where she taught painting at Parsons and began to experiment with pieces that were part painting, part drawing, part 3-D installation, part theatre – large works that early reviewers had trouble describing and that were not much like the work of artist Red Grooms, despite the frequent comparison: they were at once darker and more exuberant, more comfortable with discomfort. ‘She is trying to make myths from the commonplace,' wrote Lucy Lippard in a 1978 article in Art in America.

Walking through the Bleecker Street house when Leaf was still there, I spotted snapshots of her life with Frank – of the two of them holding hands in Cape Breton, for instance, and then of an older Frank, beaming in her studio. They were images of love and partnership. A book-stuffed sitting room was likewise touched with details of a shared life: a refrain from On the Road – ‘Whither goest thou, America, in thy shiny car in the night?' said Kerouac, who wrote the introduction to Frank's photobook The Americans – pinned below a collection of miniature Statues of Liberty. A paper collage noted Frank's birthday (November 9).

But you mostly felt Leaf, who seemed to see the world as a sketch you could redraw or resee; to her eye, every little piece of Bleecker Street was a possibility. ‘Nothing is safe in this house,' she once said. ‘Real beauty is any emphatic thing we do.' Da Vinci's The Last Supper appeared as a sculpture astride the fireplace and as a print elsewhere, and it reminded you of a thing she used to say: ‘There is no artist that is more perfect than da Vinci in terms of drawing and inventiveness.' Which, in turn, reminded you of Leaf 's unrelenting quest for invention.

In 1975, while Frank was briefly teaching filmmaking in California, Leaf took a course in car mechanics, learning welding and metalwork as a way of bringing her characters to life, as little machines. Some were small, some were huge, or at least trying to be. What was meant to be a ten-foot-tall woman will be on show this autumn at the New Museum exhibition ‘The Bowery: Devil's Mile' in New York. Entitled The Head, it began as a gigantic woman, but the factory making it only got the head done, largely, Leaf told a historian, because of her. ‘It was supposed to be a man and a woman walking, but they got so tired of me at the factory because all I wanted to do was incorporate everything around me!' she said.

There was, famously, another house, in Mabou, on Cape Breton Island, where Leaf and Frank had moved in 1969. (That house, along with Leaf 's studio there, is being preserved.) Back then, at the time, Frank was done with New York. Leaf, however, was reluctant to leave, having only known cities. But she came to love Mabou, committed to it, falling in love with her community.

Even in her nineties, Leaf couldn't stay still for long. The studio was where her hands tried to keep up with her mind in forging dreamscapes: strips of tin were fashioned as limbs, and painted figures raced or ran or fell, and felt alive even when at rest. ‘The secret is not drawing but dance,' is written across one of her charcoal works. She drew her moving sculptures, painted her drawings' momentum and, just standing in her studio, you could see her characters moving toward meanings, inhabiting abstract truths. She once told an interviewer, ‘I make them move, breathe, you know, get up, talk back to me.'

When I dropped by, only a few months before cancer would take her away in July 2024, she was still strong and vital at 94, as sharp as a tack. We talked about writers and painters and the dance of the street, and we looked at drawings, as she demonstrated a wise and critical eye. ‘That's a very good drawing,' she said of some sketch, and I could understand the value of her praise. I watched her look long and hard, which was her secret weapon, along with seeing the playfulness in a serious world. The last pieces she worked on were naturally along the lines of what she'd been working on her whole life, and they were exhibited only a week or so before she died. A friend told me that at the very moment when the art handlers came to take these final pieces off to an exhibition, a few blocks away, she was at work in her studio.

Off to be displayed were two sculptures – of a mother and child, of a man with a spear gesturing heavenwards – as well as an older painting of a boat at sea. When I saw the sea painting, I recalled an antique painting of a shipwreck I'd seen in her home – an ocean liner's passengers evacuated in a large lifeboat, in tumultuous darkness. In Leaf 's painting, the boat feels small, the ocean vast. The ocean is not dark but complicated by synapses of bright colours; it is startlingly alive. The boat is a vessel or perhaps an opening. Maybe it is a man on the stern; maybe he is fishing for something, or maybe mourning a disconnection, his body curled in struggle. A woman lays across the bow and somehow takes centre stage, despite being pictured off to the side. She is forming a shape for rest, or for forging a dream.

‘The Bowery: Devil's Mile' will be on show until 31 January 2027 at New Museum, New York; ‘June Leaf: A Survey' will be on show from 6 February-20 March 2027 at Marc Selwyn Fine Art, Beverly Hills; juneleaf.com

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

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

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

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

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

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

virginiasin.com

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

joanavasconcelos.com
kellybehun.com

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

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

Some six years ago, Aston Martin announced it was making a bigger move into private real estate. At the time, the car maker’s Miami apartment complex was already underway, but the design team also had ideas for one-off homes. The first, the N°001 Minami Aoyama residence in Tokyo, Japan, was completed in 2025. Half a world away, the second project in the company’s low-key ‘Automotive Galleries and Lairs’ design service has now gone on the market.

This is Sylvan Rock, a spectacular modern residence set on a 55-acre site in Hudson Valley, New York, less than two hours from Manhattan. Aston Martin worked closely with local designers S3 Architecture, creating a house that was shaped to fit the land, snaking around the rocky outcrop that gives it its name. Across 7,773 sq ft, the main house is supplement by a trio of self-contained guest homes, as well as an architect-designed treehouse.

The house is defined by its snaking, faceted metal roofline, an enclosure that switches between vertical cladding and diagonal surfaces as it reaches across the various elements of the house, touching the ground to provide a covered car port adjacent to the main entrance.

Beneath this metal roof is a façade clad in blackened cedar, along with expansive glazing that opens up the interior to the surrounding forest – no neighbours here. In the distance are the Catskill Mountains. ‘When designing, we always let the land speak first and respond to it,’ says Christopher Dierig of S3 Architecture, ‘The roofline mimics the jagged edges of the rock ledge reaching down into the earth, as if the home is born of and launching from the landscape.’

The main house comprises of expansive indoor and outdoor living spaces, with the latter include an outdoor kitchen and 50-foot swimming pool. Key reception rooms have raised ceilings, whilst the entire house is furnished in bespoke and unique pieces designed in collaboration with the Aston Martin design team.

Upstairs there are four bedrooms, five full baths and two half baths; the house also contains a gymnasium and spa area, whilst a tennis and sports court are located on the grounds. Downstairs, there’s a subterranean automotive gallery garage as well as a movie theatre, while other features include an office suite, and bespoke wine storage. Outside, there’s also a spring-fed pond, a kitchen garden, and walking and biking trails that lead through the property.

Cathal Loughnane, the former Head of Aston Martin Partnerships who worked on the project, explains that ‘the team wanted the owner and their guests to experience the three-dimensional feel of the house in an organic way, just like you experience one of Aston Martin’s cars, there is no single façade that dominates. Sylvan Rock is a strong marriage of design sensibilities. Creating a luxury residence with warm textures, bold forms, and exceptional privacy is very aligned with Aston Martin’s vision.’

According to the broker, Jason Karadus, Sylvan Rock is ‘the most significant modern home in the Hudson Valley. It’s also the first single residence in the world designed in partnership with Aston Martin, and it’s a privilege to be the ones representing that story. Walking through it, you understand immediately why this is a singular property.’

Sylvan Rock, 165 Woody Row Road, Red Hook, Dutchess County, NY, is for sale at $19,500,000 via Jason Karadus of Corcoran Country Living, Corcoran.com, AstonMartin.com, @AstonMartin, S3arc.com, @S3arch

A certain segment of New York’s population will get in line for just about anything – pastries, soft serve, the Jimmy Choo sample sale. Late January was no exception when throngs of people queued to catch a whiff of the rare Amorphophallus gigas, more commonly known as the Corpse Flower, at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden.

The putrid blossom smells like carrion to attract pollinators and only blooms for a few days. But the flower, christened ‘Smelliot’ by garden staffers, made a lasting impression on US400 perfumer David Seth Moltz, the co-founder of the cult New York fragrance brand, DS & Durga.

‘I was tracking it on their socials like everyone else. I happened to time [my visit] at peak stink,’ Moltz tells Wallpaper* says of his visit to BBG. ‘The aroma was so multifaceted - layers of cheese, garbage, rotten fish, death, rubber lily.’

Such a stink would cause most to run for the hills. But for Moltz, who has synesthesia, a condition in which the act of smelling can also present visual images and colors, the scent was a revelation.

‘I stuck my nose inside and stayed there for a while,’ he says. ‘I started to think how cool it would be if the most putrid flower was reborn in gorgeous opposition – rubber lily bulb becomes Madonna lily, cheese becomes tuberose, etcetera. Synesthesia comes into the process of how I make all perfumes – like painting and shading a scent based on the colours triggered by what I sniff.’

The result is one of the most unusual, and hypnotic, perfumes to hit the market recently, Resurrected Corpse Flower. The fragrance is the diametric opposite to its odiferous inspiration. Where the corpse flower smells like rot, this aroma is fresh and primordial with notes of bog cedar, heady lily and hypnotic tuberose.

‘It’s a balance of contrasts,’ Moltz explains. ‘Most of the notes are multidimensional. It opens with green olive – which is salty, yet fresh. Grapefruit – bitter, but floral and fresh. Tuberose – floral but chalky. Green banana – tart.’ All told, it brings to mind a very sexy swamp.

Moltz hopes that the new perfume draws plant lovers and ‘anyone who is interested in flowers with a real interesting twist.’ It's a twist that's certainly well worth the whiff. But those who want the opportunity to inhale the aroma of the real McCoy will have to wait – Smelliot only blooms once every few years.

Not too long ago, Daniel Humm got a text: ‘I’M FREAKING OUT,’ it read, in all caps. The note was from Italian artist Francesco Clemente, whom Humm – one of the world’s most acclaimed chefs – had commissioned to paint the ceiling of his first-ever standalone Manhattan restaurant.

The friends had collaborated on plenty of projects before. There were the hand-painted murals at Clemente Bar, the enveloping lounge tucked into the second floor of Eleven Madison Park, Humm’s three-Michelin star restaurant, not to mention cherished personal works like Humm’s own portrait and a painting that the chef used to propose to his wife. But this project, a 1,200 sq ft fresco, may have been a bridge – or at least scaffold – too far. ‘For like three weeks he didn't speak to me,’ Humm jokes.

Still, Clemente pressed on with the painstaking task. Over the course of two months, the vast tray ceilings came alive with whimsical images of stars, animals, trains and ticking clocks – one mesmerising allegory for passing time. Indeed, clocks seem to stop within the transporting interior of Humm, which opens to diners for the first time 10 October. Nearly two years in the making, the restaurant marks its namesake chef’s most personal project yet. ‘This place was really created by my friends,’ Humm says.

‘My friends are my story. [I wanted] to create a home, and you keep things in your home that are personal to you. Working with people that are in my life seemed like the way to do it,’ the chef adds.

As soon as you enter Humm, located in the former EN Japanese Brasserie space on Hudson Street, that convivial feeling is already apparent. Just beyond the host stand, a red textured sculpture designed by Rashid Johnson, you catch a glimpse of a roaring wood fire, contained in a monumental tile-clad oven that sprouts from the open-plan kitchen like a tree trunk. ‘I said, I want to open the door and I want to see the fire,’ Humm says.

No surprise, another friend brought Humm’s vision to life: New York and Paris-based designer Pierre Yovanovitch. ‘The thing is, it’s very hard to work with Daniel because his taste is better than anyone,’ Yovanovitch says. ‘His house is so nice. Every detail, every piece of furniture, every piece of art, I want to take.’

The project marked Yovanovitch’s first New York restaurant, so the city was naturally his muse, alongside Humm’s vision of elevated, wood-fired cuisine, and Clemente’s vibrant ceilings. So the designer got to work translating the colours and shapes in the artwork, as well as the spirit of Manhattan, into each space.

The 5,000 sq ft space unfolds as a series of soaring rooms. At the front of the house, you can choose to have drinks in a light-filled bar with space for about 30 guests, or opt to sink into mustard-coloured velvet banquette in a more intimate burgundy-doused lounge opposite the maître d' stand. The playful language of postmodernism is a clear touchpoint throughout, as is the theatre of New York’s grand hotels, like the Carlyle. In the bar, for instance, geometric tables and chairs evoke the towers of Philip Johnson and Kevin Roche, with a dash of Sex and the City for good measure. ‘Sometimes you miss the spirit of New York in new design,’ Yovanovitch says. ‘I wanted to go back, but not a pastiche.’

The primary dining space, flanked by a lively open kitchen, though, is Humm’s pièce de résistance. Yovanovitch brought the hues and shapes of Clemente’s murals down to the diners, through saturated hues like gold and burgundy, and contrasts in textures and materials. Lacquered red partitions create more intimate zones – where diners will encounter comforting dishes like charcoal-grilled fish and roast chicken for two – while table lamps and frosted glass chandeliers accentuate the residential feel. Clemente’s Sistine Chapel-worthy artwork will have guests looking up, but Yovanovitch created a surprise underfoot as well: intricate stone floors are bordered with the same whimsical creatures found in Clemente’s painting.

Art, as in Eleven Madison Park and Clemente Bar, is another throughline. Guests will discover works by Louise Bourgeois and Roni Horn in corners. Yovanovitch’s interiors are equally artful, as with a scenic tile mural that evokes a dreamy sunset landscape; a red acoustical ‘mushroom’ light fixture that hovers above the lounge; and twisting rope-like tablebases. More works by Clemente can be found, including in a private dining room, swaddled in a fabric tent.

‘It's a labour of love,’ Humm says, reflecting on his collaborators. ‘Because we all respect each other, everyone rises higher together. I think that's what I feel has happened.’

Clemente’s freakout, as a matter of fact, turned out to be a good thing: ‘I saw the room with the lights and almost everything in place,’ the artist typed, ‘and it's beyond.’

Humm is located at 435 Hudson Street New York, NY, 10014, USA

The over-saturation of Italian restaurants in New York's West Village has reached almost comical levels. So news that Catch Hospitality Group – behind the exclusive The Corner Store, Or'esh and The Eighty Six – was bringing a coastal French brasserie concept by chef Jake Tyler Brodsky to the neighbourhood’s narrow, brownstone-lined streets was warmly welcomed. Barely a month into operation, and similarly to its predecessors, Cafe Charmant is already the hottest reservation in town: Paul McCartney, Tom Holland and Matt Damon were all in the dining room on one crisp, early-autumn Tuesday evening.

Wallpaper* dines at Cafe Charmant

The mood: Decadently nonchalant

For its fourth dining concept in New York, the Catch team turned to longtime collaborators Rockwell Group to transform the former Saint Theo’s space on Bleecker Street. Cafe Charmant’s interiors veer away from the dark, members’ club-like feel of the other Catch locations. Instead, the space is washed in a champagne hue that lightens the overall aesthetic and creates a more casual, day-to-night setting. Warm, even lighting and oxblood-red accents still ensure that the space feels seductive and indulgent.

Outside, the restaurant’s name glows in neon above a yellow-painted exterior and awning, which surround curtain-shrouded windows that maintain the privacy of those inside. Stepping off Bleecker Street, past the heavy red velvet curtains, a spacious, softly lit foyer welcomes guests almost like a theatre lobby. Another curtain – for extra dramatic effect – reveals the main dining space beyond. Here, brasserie trademarks set a familiar Parisian scene, such as steam-bent wooden dining chairs, leather-wrapped booths, coloured-glass table lamps and antique mirrors. Hints of New York peek through in the choices of dark wood, Art Deco-influenced pendant lights above the bar and a ceiling clad in decorative tin panels – each perforated with thousands of holes and concealing acoustic buffering to ensure conversations below can be easily heard, but not overheard.

The 70-seat restaurant manages to feel intimate yet spacious at once. Tables aren’t on top of one another, as they typically are in most West Village joints, and there’s plenty of room for servers to circulate uninhibitedly. But there’s still plenty of bustle and atmosphere, so it doesn’t feel awkward to strike up a conversation with the next table.

The food: Invigorated classics

'A coastal take on the classic NYC French brasserie', as it’s billed, doesn’t quite do justice to the inventive dishes composed by chef Jake Tyler Brodsky, who cut his teeth at Eleven Madison Park. Along with beverage director Lucas Robinson and wine director Emily Buse, the team has created a variety of clever spins on perennial brasserie favourites. Take the spicy moules gratin and razor clam pasta as examples. Meanwhile, the quality of the 30oz côte de boeuf bone-in ribeye requires no deviation from the original.

Subtle infusions of Caribbean flavours across the menu undoubtedly arose from chef Jake’s time spent in the Cayman Islands. The Curry Duck Pastel, a samosa-style bite, is filled with duck blended with spices and homemade coconut milk, and served with a sweet-tangy chutney. Another unexpected flavour reveals itself in the crispy shrimp Polynesian, which adds a hint of sansho – a Japanese numbing spice that the chef brought home from Tokyo – to the tropical sauce. Diners will have to wait until next summer for the return of the anchovy-laced Heirloom Tomato salad dusted with Mahón cheese, as the menu changes seasonally based on what’s available at the farmers’ market.

It was genuinely difficult to choose from the cocktail menu. Highlights include the refreshing vodka-based cucumber sour, beautifully decorated with slices laid like fish scales up the side of the glass. This was an ideal accompaniment to both the zesty, lime-drizzled diver scallop crudo and citrusy, marmalade-mixed maidai crudo. And while cocktail pairings with the dishes aren’t necessarily prescribed, several more matched perfectly with one another. The pear and honey martini, served with a sidecar and a slice of honeycomb for extra sweetness between sips, complements the light glaze over the tuna 'Charmant' tartare. And the peppery notes in the bar’s Negroni variation elevate the sauce accompanying the steak frites – a beloved staple on any brasserie menu.

Dessert options include a decadent Chocolate Mousse Service, which brings a giant ellipsoid scoop and a trio of toppings to mix and match, and a tangy lemon meringue posset handsomely presented in a silver coupe. Both the pain au chocolat old fashioned and a wonderfully hazelnutty espresso martini are a perfect end to the meal and start to the rest of the night – this crowd is definitely going out after dinner.

Cafe Charmant is located at 340 Bleecker St, New York, NY 10014, USA

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pow, even.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anyone who knew Mulholland Drive (2001) needed little introduction to the name Silencio. So when a real-world version of the fictitious nightclub opened in Paris in 2011, with interiors conceived by David Lynch himself, the curiosity was inevitable.

In the former printing rooms of L’Aurore, founder Arnaud Frisch had given the late filmmaker’s enigmatic nightspot a tangible Paris address, with a cultural cachet as idiosyncratic as its surroundings.

Silencio at 15

Lynch may have been the initial attraction, but the programme quickly became a reason to pay attention in its own right, bringing musicians, filmmakers, artists and writers into regular company. Fifteen years later, Frisch’s favourite milestones range from Lana Del Rey’s first Paris concert to Virgil Abloh’s first DJ set. ‘We understood that people were looking for more than a conventional nightclub,’ says Frisch. ‘The idea was to create a place where cinema, art, music, food and conversation could coexist, and where different creative worlds could meet.’

Prince, Björk and Kendrick Lamar have all performed at Silencio too, while the club’s wider creative cast includes filmmaker and photographer Larry Clark, designer Michèle Lamy, director Gaspar Noé and novelist Bret Easton Ellis. Their shared taste for provocation gives some sense of Frisch’s programming instincts, which allow music, cinema, fashion and literature to rub shoulders. In his words, they belong to ‘the same editorial universe’.

Frisch’s own tastes took shape in the electronic music scene of 1990s Paris, where going out eventually grew into an interest in creating places for others to gather. He launched Social Club with his partners, catering to the city’s appetite for electronic music, and his ventures now include Wanderlust, Salò and FVTVR. Each has taught him something about the relationship between a venue and its public: Social Club found a committed musical following, while the rooftop club Wanderlust showed him how nightlife and the seasons could alter the habits and geography of a neighbourhood. ‘What connects them is that we have never tried to reproduce the same formula,’ he says. ‘Each project responds to a place, a moment and the community around it.’

In Paris, a few kilometres can separate an underground club from a rooftop party, a cultural venue or a large electronic night. Frisch sees that proximity and variety as essential to the city’s character, though the allegiances of its audiences have changed. Younger guests are comfortable sampling several scenes, following their interests between music, fashion, art and food without feeling obliged to belong to any one of them.

At Silencio, a screening or a talk is as much a reason to visit as a night of music, with private events also punctuating the calendar. Membership helps pay for that breadth and gives the team some freedom in choosing what to programme. For Frisch, the value lies in seeing the same people often enough to get acquainted with their work – and, occasionally, find someone to collaborate with. ‘Exclusivity is not the objective,’ he says. His account of membership centres on familiarity: enough repeated encounters for people to get beyond introductions. A well-connected opening party is one thing; maintaining that company over years requires attention. He is similarly measured about the famous names.

‘You can create the conditions for things to happen by inviting artists, directors, writers and musicians you believe in and giving them freedom,’ he says. ‘But you cannot manufacture what a place means culturally.’ That depends on the projects, the encounters people remember and whether artists choose to return.

Frisch’s choice of architectural collaborators has given each address its own personality. At the short-lived Joséphine, which occupied the Théâtre du Châtelet from 2019 until March 2020, he worked with Virgil Abloh. Studio KO furnished a different Parisian proposition at Silencio des Prés, which opened in 2021 at the former Beau Regard, combining a restaurant, terrace and cinema. The venue has since closed, but that same year took Silencio to Cala Molí in Ibiza, where Moredesign’s timber, raffia and sandy floors accommodated art, music and long lunches by the sea. Artist Miranda Makaroff contributed to the opening, and the addition of Japanese restaurant Urusai in 2024 brought architect and designer Kulapat Yantrasast into the company’s creative roster.

In New York, meanwhile, Harry Nuriev arranged Silencio around a rectangular red dance floor, framed by curtains, LED strips and reflective padding. ‘We start by understanding the venue: its architecture, its neighbourhood, and the cultural scene around it,’ says Frisch. ‘We can’t reproduce a single model.’

Later this month, Silencio will take up residence in Berlin’s former Watergate nightclub, overlooking the Spree in Kreuzberg. Running until May 2027, the pop-up will host a different collective each weekend, allowing successive organisers to shape the programme and bring their own following to an address already familiar to the city’s clubbers.

For the opening, artist and architect Marc Leschelier is working with Studio Karhard, with lighting by Studio Raito and visual identity by Bureau Borsche. Leschelier’s practice draws on construction and heavy industry, giving the temporary occupation a vocabulary of weight and apparent permanence. ‘What I find extraordinary in his work is the precision and economy of his vocabulary,’ says Leschelier. ‘A few elements can acquire an incredibly strong presence and create an entire atmosphere.’

Silencio is accustomed to temporary arrangements, having become a familiar presence on the international art and film circuit, with pop-ups around the Venice Biennale, Cannes Film Festival and Art Basel Miami Beach. In February, it spent three nights at the West Hollywood Edition during Frieze Los Angeles.

Frisch is considering a hotel, too, although he offers no definite plans. His interest in hospitality has always accommodated screenings, dinners and conversations alongside the music; somewhere to stay would extend that thinking. Berlin, meanwhile, offers ample reason to retain his faith in the nightclub as a destination in itself. A book due in September 2027 will collect Silencio’s first 15 years. Frisch has plenty of material, and a reservation about dwelling on it: ‘A club cannot be preserved like a museum; it has to respond to new generations, new artists and changes in the city around it.’

lesilencio.com

‘My identity is scattered all over the place,’ says artist Zoya Cherkassky. ‘I was born in Ukraine, grew up in Israel, and lived in Germany for five years.’ A year and a half ago, Cherkassky moved to the United States, and has been attempting to make sense of both her transitory status and the familiar yet unknown American way of life in a new series of paintings and drawings.

‘I also come from a very mixed family,’ Cherkassky adds. ‘My father was Jewish, my mother is half Ukrainian and half Jewish, my husband is Igbo, and my sister was married to an Arab from Jordan, so I have two nieces who were born there. So adding a new American identity was just a drop in the ocean.’

This heritage is a rich jumping-off point in Cherkassky’s exhibition at Fort Gansevoort, New York, American Cooking, which anchors itself in the everyday rituals Cherkassky has noticed around her. Named after a vintage cookbook she found near her Long Island studio, the works in the exhibition translate scenes of ritual – often involving food but also including playgrounds, subways, pavements – into evocative, often playful figurative paintings.

‘I think these moments are what life is really made of, the things that later become our memories,’ Cherkassky says. ‘I’m also, of course, influenced by the realist and humanist tradition in painting. At the art school in Kyiv, every year began with the same assignment: to make a composition on the theme “How I Spent My Summer.” In a way, that’s what I’ve been painting all my life. Small details are very important to me, the things I notice that make these situations recognisable, something that anyone can relate to.’

Throughout her work, themes including Jewish identity, politics and migration are considered through an often humorous lens, lending a poignancy to her scenes which are rooted in reality. Caught going about their day, Cherkassky’s subjects are vulnerable in their honesty. ‘Humour is what has always helped my people survive – we Jews are stereotypically famous for our sense of humor. It’s also, of course, part of my personality, I love to laugh my ass off and I know a lot of jokes,’ Cherkassky says.

‘In recent years, any political subject has become extremely explosive, and art is often confused with activism or propaganda. This frustrates me because I see how afraid people are to express their opinions. I think it really damages the broader discourse. Nevertheless, it’s important for me to address these subjects. I try to do it through humour, and I just hope that the political content in my work isn't manipulated and taken out of context.’

American Cooking until November 7 at Fort Gansevoort, New York

On show this weekend at Chelsea Industrial in New York, this installation by Brooklyn-based conceptual art collective MSCHF demonstrates Lexus’s ongoing commitment to art, the avant-garde and the importance of making an impact. Motomorphosis is making its debut during Armory Week and features two outlandishly altered production Lexus EVs, a Lexus RZ450e and a Lexus RX450h+.

Each model has been turned into a sculptural piece, Circle Car and Twisted Car, displayed alongside its original vehicle. The installation is a continuation of MSCHF’s exploration of the intersection between the digital and physical worlds, using techniques and aesthetics more commonly associated with 3D software, Photoshop and CGI and translating them into real-world forms.

Hence the surrealist nose-to-tail loop of the Circle Car, which looks like as if a regular Lexus RZ450e has been extruded along a circular path. It’s paired with Twisted Car, an almost nightmarish vision of the latest Lexus RX450h+ scrunched up like a wrung-out towel, with its signature fluted and twisted body forms given uncanny amplification.

These aren’t concept cars in the conventional sense, but ‘Form Cars’ – at least that’s how MSCHF describes them. ‘Where a car is concretely engineered to move, the works in Motormorphosis are sculpted to produce the idea of movement,’ the studio says. As well as computer-driven processes, the two sculptures also nod to Futurism, the century-old art Italian art movement that strove to convey dynamism through static form.

‘Most conversations about electrification focus on how a vehicle is powered. Motormorphosis asks a different question: what can electricity power in our imagination?’, says Lexus marketing’s senior manager Lisa McQueen, ‘working with MSCHF allowed us to take the automobile beyond its familiar form and explore movement, transformation and possibility in an entirely new way.’

Rather unnecessarily, the exhibition’s disclaimer notes that ‘the vehicles shown are special project vehicles modified with non-Lexus parts that may void warranty, negatively impact safety, and not be street legal.’

Motormorphosis is at Chelsea Industrial, 545 W. 28th St., New York, NY
Motormorphosis.com, @ChelseaIndustrial, MSCHF.com, @MSCHF, @LexusUSA

New York’s Crown Building comes with a history as flamboyant as the bejewelled coronet that sits at its top, including stints as the original home of the Museum of Modern Art and, infamously, a one-time birthday gift for Imelda Marcos. In 2022, though, the upper storeys of the landmarked tower reopened as a bastion of understated sophistication, Aman New York, marking the ultra-luxury, Swiss-based hotel brand’s first urban location in the United States.

Like Aman’s other US destinations – notably Amangiri, the storied desert escape in Canyon Point, Utah – Aman New York quickly became one of America’s top hotels. It’s even earned the Michelin Guide’s coveted Three-Keys designation, one of just four hotels in the city to meet the standard.

Not being a property to rest on its laurels (though the top of the building is festooned in carved floral wreaths), Aman New York recently added a new class of luxury accommodation to join its existing 83 guest suites and residences. The property’s Home collection consists of seven sprawling private residences that are geared towards discerning travellers looking for a personal, apartment-like feel, whether they’re staying for a few nights or a few weeks, travelling with extended family or a retinue. With luxury amenities that include everything from private pools to private chefs to private butler service, Aman New York’s Homes offer a new benchmark for luxury hospitality in the Big Apple. Here’s what to expect.

Wallpaper* checks in at the Aman New York Homes

What’s on your doorstep?

Located on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 57th Street – aka Billionaire’s Row – Aman New York places you in the heart of Manhattan’s most iconic shopping district. In fact, some of New York’s most storied shops can be found no further than you can throw a Birkin, including Bergdorf Goodman, Tiffany & Co, Gucci and Louis Vuitton, all of which are across the street. Don’t feel the need to cross a chaotic city road? Bulgari and Prada are just downstairs.

Walk two blocks north and you’ll find yourself in the lush expanse of Central Park. Enjoy a leisurely stroll, or – if you’re feeling ambitious after all that shopping – lace up your sneakers for a brisk six-mile loop. Cultural attractions abound in this part of Manhattan, too, whether you hoof it four blocks to MoMA (the institution left the Crown in 1932) or hitch Aman’s private car to Lincoln Center, the Met, the Guggenheim or the Frick.

Who is behind the design?

Aman relied on longtime collaborator and hospitality veteran Jean-Michel Gathy and his Kuala Lumpur-based design firm Denniston for the interiors. The name ‘Aman’ is derived from the Sanskrit word for ‘peace’, one that can feel incongruous in a city as intense as the Big Apple. ‘The challenge,’ the firm said, ‘was to bring Aman's stillness into one of the world's most relentless cities.’

That’s a feeling as soon as you step in from the busy street to the hushed double-height lobby. Visitors ascend an elevator to the 14th-floor reception area, a step that provides additional removal from the stressful metropolis.

In contrast with the Crown Building’s opulent exterior (30 gallons of liquid gold purportedly coat its summit), Gathy designed the spaces with warm Japanese minimalism in mind, emphasising mindful materials and connections with nature. The ceilings in the reception are in a rhythmic basketweave, a pattern that’s picked up in the subtle-yet-sumptuous dark marble flooring. Finishes like timber, grasscloth and raw stone create an enveloping, wabi-sabi atmosphere. Even though you’re in the middle of the concrete jungle, thoughtful touchpoints with the outdoors can be found everywhere, from precise ikebana floral arrangements to an outdoor terrace that’s planted with rustling maple trees to the vertiginous views out to Central Park.

The room to book

Guests of Aman New York can expect an exceptional experience from any of the hotel’s 83 suites, each of which comes equipped with its own working fireplace. But for discriminating travellers looking for an even more immersive experience – and more room for their friends and family – look no further than the four new Homes. Two feature private pools, offering the chance to almost quite literally float on the clouds.

For the ultimate chance to spread out in style, aim for the full-floor residence. Encompassing a mind-boggling 6,300 sq ft, this residence comes with three bedrooms, an open-plan living and dining area, a sprawling kitchen stocked with matching Le Creuset cookware, a dedicated office, an entertainment room and even staff quarters. The quarters even come with a private butler.

The level of detail is on par with the rest of Aman’s spaces, from the refined parquet floors inlaid with brass; fireplaces in the living room, primary bedroom and (yes) bathroom; and bespoke furnishings. Ikebana arrangements are brought in fresh. Even the door surrounds are perfumed with cinnamon-scented wood, a feature that leaves a softly-scented wake as you drift from room to room.

Just as luxurious is the surfeit of square footage, a rarity in New York’s cramped hospitality market. The walk-in closet comes with an additional closet; the living room has two sitting areas; the private office has its own en-suite bathroom. A recent visitor even had to call her husband’s cell phone to find him. The biggest treat, though, is the views. This plush aerie affords wrap-around views of Central Park, the green mansard roof of the Plaza Hotel, and Louis Vuitton’s trunk-shaped scaffolding.

Staying for drinks and dinner?

There’s no shortage of fine dining options in this part of Midtown. But some of the best – and most exclusive – can be found at the Aman New York; in fact, dining spaces are only accessible to hotel guests, residents and members of the Aman’s private club.

For unforgettable Japanese cuisine, allow the elevator to whisk you down to Akari on the 14th floor. The organic interiors, which feature a ceiling inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright, allow you to prepare yourself for the exquisite feast to come, courtesy of chef Takuma Yonemaru. For the best experience, opt for the Chef’s Tasting Menu, which highlights seasonal ingredients and the finest seafood, flown in directly from Japan. (And don’t miss the Matcha-misu, a green-tinged riff on the Italian classic). Craving comforts? Head to Arva, the Aman New York’s Italian concept. Choose from classics like veal Milanese and spaghetti alla carbonara, or have a leisurely Sunday morning on the terrace during the restaurant’s weekend brunch.

If you’re craving light bites and cocktails, the Aman also offers a host of relaxed nooks in which to imbibe and unwind, from the verdant Garden Terrace, to the seductive lounge bar to a speakeasy-style jazz bar. Of course, you may not want to leave your gorgeous suite at all. Not to worry: you can book your own in-home chef experience.

Where to switch off

Aman New York takes wellness seriously. So seriously, in fact, that three floors and 25,000 sq ft of the property are dedicated exclusively to fitness, longevity and relaxation. Work out on cutting-edge Technogym equipment in the fitness centre, where you can also access a yoga and a pilates studio and a cryotherapy chamber for recovery. Looking for more? Book a private class in everything from yoga to Brazilian jiu-jitsu, a custom fitness assessment, or special wellness journeys curated by Maria Sharapova and Novak Djokovic.

But more likely than not, you’ll want to spend your time on the second floor lounging alongside a fire pit in front of a 65ft lap pool. Here you can also find a banya and hammam, each with a terrace and cold plunge. The Aman New York’s spa is best in class, with specially-designed treatments to leave you calm and refreshed. The 120-minute Aman New York signature journey is especially designed to calm stressed-out urbanites, with a ritual that begins with a fluorite crystal (a mineral that can literally be found in Manhattan’s bedrock) and continues with massage, singing bowls and an Aman x 111Skin hydrogel mask.

The verdict

Like the name of its building implies, the Aman New York is a jewel in the crown of Manhattan hospitality. With everything literally at your doorstep – from world-class shopping to superlative service – the Homes category allows well-heeled travellers to feel like they have their very own city pied-à-terre, whether they’re spending a night or two, or settling in for a multi-week stay. A slice of the Big Apple with no strings attached? We can’t think of a finer luxury.

Aman New York is located at the Crown Building, 730 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10019, USA

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A generous bundle of perfectly yellow bananas crowds an intricately crafted crimson basket; an army of mammoth hippos pile on top of each other with dramatic roars. Look more closely and you'll also find, amid Pablo Bronstein’s new drawings in his solo exhibition ‘Clocks’ at Olney Gleason gallery in New York’s Chelsea, narratively deviant mantel clocks brimming with historical allegory and technical elegance. Leaving time-telling purposes behind, the Buenos Aires-born and London-based artist’s clocks in acrylic tease with references to historical grandeur and nationalist dominance; some completely devoid of arms or too miniature to even notice, they claim dramatic footings in each of his detailed compositions.

Infused with historical references that range from colonial greed to land extraction, Bronstein’s decorative illustrations on paper act out history’s bond between power and ornamentation. ‘The clock as an allegory ties with my interest in decorative arts and in talking about history and geography,' Bronstein tells Wallpaper*. He considers clocks as 'objects that speak more than they are supposed to' and finds 'a lot of content about empires' in them.

For the artist who previously exhibited four antique clocks on pedestals in his 2024 show at Palazzo Bentivoglio in Bologna, such timepieces all 'have history crammed into them as allegory'. Bronstein, whose fascination with mantel clocks is also embodied in his personal collection of 19th-century French examples, is drawn to their decorative abundance rather than their ability to track time.

As a former collector of antiques – particularly silver sugar casters, a passion that started with a gift from his Argentine grandmother – he believes clock design has a uniqueness that is lacking in other decorative arts. 'There is a flat symbolic clarification of the moment and then there is the ornate case,' he says and points out the 'jog between the allegorical sophistication and the numbers that go around'.

This waltz between the globally accepted yet abstract flow of time and a desire for beautification echoes in Bronstein’s complex reference system in the show’s eight drawings. Banana Basket, for example, has one larger banana raised from the generous feast basket with its curvy peels revealing the ripe fruit. Amid the dramatically arched peels and the phallic offer, a central clock shows what Bronstein explains as the Boston time. The entire composition is a reference to the operations of the United Fruit Company and the history of the pejorative term ‘banana republic’, used for countries that, ultimately, were exploited by other nations and corporations.

In Classical Triumphant, a grand Greek Revival building spreads across the drawing’s nearly 2m width and sits over a pedestal adorned with intricate patterning and three clocks, of which the middle is left blank. The referenced architectural period speaks to many world leaders’ inclination towards Classicism and attempts to redecorate their residences in glorifying fashion. ‘In the context of culture war,’ the artist says, 'the presence of purity and perfection signifiers is all the more aggressive.'

In other drawings, a clock-biting alligator climbs a building inspired by Lower Manhattan’s windowless AT&T Long Lines building, and a lion-riding angel hauls a cart full of coals, based on a decorative object on the artist’s own fireplace.

Architectural, historical, or diaristic, the show’s visual cues stems from Bronstein’s own wealth of titles in his personal library. He often starts with a pencil outline while surrounded by numerous books with open pages and lets intuition usher him through the process, including adding the shading with ink. The twisted embellishments and blurred hyperboles rub shoulders with Bronstein’s inquiries about queering the power structures of aesthetics. 'Queer culture is good at pulling extremes together, such as making an enormous drama out of nothing and subverting traumatic elements with humour,' Bronstein says, and adds that this duality lets him 'worm my way into two different places at the same time'.

‘Pablo Bronstein: Clocks’ is on view at Olney Gleason in New York through 17 October 2026

olneygleason.com

Moncler’s story began in the mountains outside of Grenoble, France in 1952. Now, nearly 75 years later, it’s taken root amid Manhattan’s skyscraper canyons.

Today the luxury outerwear and lifestyle brand opens the doors to a new global flagship on Fifth Avenue, New York’s most famous shopping district. At nearly 24,000 sq ft, the store marks the largest Moncler location in the world, a destination where shoppers can immerse themselves in the brand’s latest collections; exclusive collaborations; and performance gear across two floors of dazzling retail spaces.

The store is also a love letter to New York. ‘When this iconic location on Fifth Avenue became available, we saw the opportunity to create something unique,’ explains Remo Ruffini, Moncler’s executive chairman. ‘Not just our largest flagship in the world, but a place to welcome existing and new communities, to express Moncler DNA at its best.’

To translate that ethos, Ruffini enlisted longtime collaborator Patrick Gilles of the acclaimed Parisian design firm Gilles & Boissier. ‘Patrick and I have worked together for more than two decades,’ Ruffini says. ‘Over the years, we have built a relationship based on trust and a shared vision. I do not need to explain everything; he instinctively understands what I have in mind, sometimes even before I say it.’

Gilles & Boissier had worked on Moncler boutiques in the past, and helped develop the brand’s architectural language when Ruffini took the helm 23 years ago. But for a New York flagship of this scale, Gilles knew he had to create something unique.

The store takes over the base of the GM Building, a 50-storey modernist tower designed by Edward Durell Stone in the mid 1960s. More recently, it was the location of FAO Schwarz, the beloved toy store that closed its doors a decade ago. ‘Every time that I went to New York there were a few things to do, FAO Schwartz was a destination,’ Gilles says – and whatever his firm created had to be just as memorable.

One opportunity was the scale of the space itself. ‘It’s super deep, and super big. It has nine-meter-high ceilings so it is something quite impressive,’ the architect says.

That allows for a grand entry sequence, an experience Gilles likens to the anticipation of stepping inside of a darkened theatre. From there, visitors step into a dazzling retail wonderland that marries the exhilaration of whizzing down slopes with the energy of Times Square. Collections are organised into enveloping bays that reveal themselves as you make your way deeper into the store – a sensation the architect compares to progressing through Manhattan’s neighbourhoods.

On the ground level, shoppers encounter the Moncler Collection encompassing men’s, women’s and children’s apparel; Moncler Genius designer collaborations; as well as accessories. Here, Gilles re-interpreted the General Motors Building’s modernist facade language – defined by vertical bands of white marble – with strips of bright white light on the walls and ceilings, a move that contrasts with gray-and-black checkerboard marble floors, and stone-clad columns. Whimsical house-shaped ‘curiosity cabins,’ clad in a mirrored finish, punctuate the space, as do towering evergreen trees and a monumental artwork by Ugo Rondinone. ‘It’s full of surprises,’ Gilles says.

Nods to the mountains appear in the store’s raw material palette of textured stone, timber and icy textured glass. But there are also nods to French culture, an important element of Moncler’s history, even though the brand is based in Italy today. Retail niches feature elegant details, including intricate plaster mouldings, and fanciful wood boiserie. ‘The story of Moncler comes from nature and from French culture,’ Gilles explains.

There’s more to discover upstairs, a level that’s devoted entirely to Moncler Grenoble, the brand’s collection devoted to life on the slopes. Here, guests can discover high-performance apparel and accessories for mountain activities ranging from skiing to snowboarding to trekking or simply relaxing in a chalet. This section also displays partnerships with Stöckli skis, POC helmets and even snowboards creed in collaboration with champion snowboarder and Moncler brand ambassador Shaun White.

The mood is slightly more hushed on this level, not no less dynamic thanks to illuminated ceiling panels (another modernist hat-tip) and dramatically-lit niches that elevate ski equipment into works of art. ‘The purpose was really to be in the Moncler style, which is quite discreet, but at the same time take the level of sensation as high as we could,’ Gilles says. ‘You will be in the shop, but also a part of the shop.’

The unique flagship experience is not just limited to the design; shoppers can also discover the latest LoveFrom, Moncler collection, an exclusive collaboration with designer Jony Ive, or customise their own jackets with Moncler to Measure, the brand’s first-ever bespoke atelier. Don’t know what to pick? Just consult Moncler’s AI-powered Outerwear Guide, another innovation coinciding with the boutique’s opening.

It’s all about leaving guests with a memorable experience, whether they’re selecting a new down jacket or encountering Moncler through its latest open-air art program, now on the streets of New York.

‘It’s more a project of sensation than anything else,’ Gilles reflects. ‘Your experience could be different than mine.’

Moncler New York is located at 767 5th Ave New York, NY 10153 USA

Ask many a skincare obsessive what their favourite brand is and chances are the response will be Biologique Recherche. Founded in the late 1970s by the biologist Yvan Allouche and physiotherapist Josette Allouche, Biologique Recherche has achieved its cult following and commercial success almost entirely through word of mouth, rarely engaging in traditional advertising or public promotion. But the brand has yet to become a household name, at least beyond its native France.

That, however, is about to change, thanks to the opening this week (8 September 2026) of the brand’s first flagship store in New York City. Located on 132 Greene Street in SoHo, the 2,500 sq ft space is the brand’s debut of its new, more public-facing identity. In the words of Wandjina Glasheen-Brown, SVP of global creative at Biologique Recherche, it’s a space that ‘is giving our reputation a voice, a vibe, and a physical grammar’.

Designed by London- and Berlin-based architecture studio Casper Mueller Kneer, ‘the Residence’ is the first boutique to bring Biologique Recherche’s new architectural concept to life. Inside, visitors will find a retail area for products; a space for the brand’s signature ‘Skin Instant’ diagnosis and expert consultation, allowing staff to create a personalised skincare routine for clients; and treatment rooms for both facials and body treatments.

‘Casper Mueller Kneer’s approach allowed us to explore the contrasts and contradictions that are central to Biologique Recherche,’ says Glasheen-Brown. ‘Precision and warmth, science and emotion, technical expertise and human touch – while also creating a dialogue between the maison’s Parisian heritage and the energy of New York. Together, we developed a new architectural language for the maison that feels contemporary and distinctive, without losing the unconventional spirit that has always been part of its identity.’

Upon entering the space, visitors are greeted by an ‘altar table’ where the products are displayed and which gives the serums, in Glasheen-Brown’s words, ‘a kind of sculptural authority, almost reliquary-like’, while a gold-leaf ceiling creates a warm, opulent aesthetic that contrasts with the clinical appearance of the glass-cylinder bottles. That clean, restrained look is picked up in the stainless-steel display area beyond, however, and, past that, the opulence returns with a blue marble bar inspired by the journey that the Seine takes through Paris.

Those who visit the treatment rooms will find themselves transitioning into a progressively more secluded environment, with the acoustics and atmosphere shifting to create a more intimate feel. Soft carpets underfoot are decorated with a design inspired by the Sistine Chapel ceiling, while the lighting and soundscapes in the treatment rooms are engineered to complement the rhythm of each treatment.

For Biologique Recherche, the New York space is an important moment for the brand, reflecting its move into a more public arena. That said, it is essential to all those behind it that the company retains the principles that have defined its approach since the 1970s.

‘Growth, for this maison, has to stay disciplined and highly selective. The things that built our reputation – professional expertise, the quality of our client relationships, and a genuinely personalised approach – are not negotiable as we scale exposure,’ says Glasheen-Brown. ‘What makes Biologique Recherche special was never scarcity for its own sake; it is the depth of methodology, of efficacy, and of the practitioner relationship. Our job now is to protect that depth while finally letting the maison show up with the confidence it's earned, on a global stage.’

Visit the store at 132 Greene Street, New York City, NY 10012, biologique-recherche.com/en-us

Shop Biologique Recherche

Earlier this week, Victoria Beckham revealed that her eponymous fashion and beauty line has made a profit for the first time in its 18-year history (she founded the label in 2008, and has hosted runway shows in Paris, New York and its native London). Those profits amounted to 7.3 million, something bolstered by her critically lauded beauty line, which launched in 2019. ‘We have all worked hard for a long time for this moment of profitability and growth,’ she told the Financial Times.

It feels an apt moment, then, for Beckham to open the doors to the brand’s second permanent home, an outpost in New York’s SoHo district. Designed as a companion to her 2014-opened London flagship on Mayfair’s Dover Street – a two-storey conversion in sleek planes of polished concrete by Farshid Moussavi Architects – the New York address was overseen by artist Alexander May and designer Ole Lund of LNP, drawing on the distinctive cast-iron, post-industrial architecture of the neighbourhood.

‘I really wanted the SoHo store to honour the building’s unique character and give the space a distinctly New York sensibility,’ Beckham tells Wallpaper*. ‘We did this by keeping some of the original features and drawing inspiration from the art deco world of Tamara de Lempicka.’ (De Lempicka, a Polish art deco artist known for her bold, stylised portraiture, inspired Beckham’s A/W 2026 collection shown at Paris Fashion Week earlier this year). ‘At the same time, it needed to feel unmistakably Victoria Beckham – warm, intimate and like an extension of the house.’

‘Our starting point was to create a distinctly New York expression of the Victoria Beckham world: precise and confident, but also intimate and welcoming,’ add May and Lund. ‘We preserved the original character of the SoHo building and introduced a disciplined palette of mineral tones, burgundy, marble, timber, lacquer and velvet, balancing the strength of the architecture with softer, more tactile elements.’ Beckham describes it as a clash of ‘masculine and feminine’, a juxtaposition which also runs through her runway collections.

Much of this mood is created through May and Lund’s curation of furnishing and textiles, which add a feeling of richness to the otherwise simple, wood-floored space. Velvet drapery and curtains, created in collaboration with The Shade Store, line the space’s entranceway, while bespoke sculptural, curving sofas were designed by Pierre Augustin Rose. Elsewhere, a pair of monolithic marble counters intersect the space, used to display accessories and beauty, while a Gio Ponti lantern hangs over the entranceway staircase. Paints draw on the palette of Dorset-based company Farrow & Ball.

The store’s opening coincides with New York Fashion Week, which begins next week (10-15 September) and will feature a number of other big-name retail launches, including a vast new Moncler store on Fifth Avenue and a new Acne Studios address in the West Village. They are part of a bricks-and-mortar luxury retail renaissance in the city, which is largely centred around Fifth Avenue and Madison Avenue, bolstered by ‘mega-flagships’ like the four-floor Peter Marino-designed House of Dior New York, which opened in 2025 on the corner of East 57th Street and Madison. In April, property company Savills placed New York as the top city for luxury retail openings for the first time since 2019.

‘New York is where I started my brand, showing my collections there for the first time in 2008, and it’s also where I launched my beauty business,’ says Beckham of the city, where she showed for a decade before shifting to London in 2018. ‘Today, my teams are based in London and New York, so to now have retail spaces in both cities feels incredibly special and exciting. They are two places that have truly become home to my brands.’

Victoria Beckham New York, 150 Mercer Street, New York, NY 10012.

victoriabeckham.com

When Charles M Schulz first introduced Charlie Brown to the world in October 1950, the beloved cartoon character wore a plain white T-shirt. But Schulz realised Charlie Brown was missing something. ‘He didn’t bounce off the page,’ the American cartoonist later recounted. ‘So I gave him that little jagged stripe, and he’s had it ever since.’

Clothing quickly became visual shorthand for each character in the Peanuts comic-strip universe. Sally wore polka dots; Linus had stripes and his trusty security blanket; Peppermint Patty flaunted flip-flops. Even Snoopy, the beloved beagle, first appeared with a flower tucked into his collar.

‘Snoopy in Style’, a new exhibition opening today (2 September 2026) in New York, tells the story of Peanuts and its creator through fashion. Through archival material, fashion rarities, special commissions and experiential vignettes, the show highlights Peanuts’ enduring influence on fashion and pop culture.

That starts with Schulz himself. The Minnesota-born cartoonist – ‘Sparky’, as he was known to those close to him – was always a snazzy dresser, thanks to his father (a barber) and a proclivity for sweaters, courtesy of a clothing store called the Lions Den, local to Santa Rosa where he later moved. The exhibition features a selection of some of the best, courtesy of The Charles M Schulz Museum and Research Center, including a red-and-black argyle number and a flame-stitch crewneck.

As the popularity of the strip grew, so did Peanuts’ reach. San Francisco businesswoman Connie Boucher saw opportunity in Peanuts-themed merchandise. In partnership with Schulz, Boucher helped the comic strip grow from a fixture in the ‘funnies’ into Peanuts the brand. Peanuts-themed datebooks, plush dolls, clothing and more – a plethora of which is shown in ‘Snoopy in Style’ – flooded the market. Standouts include original 1960s-era wall calendars with psychedelic graphics; a rainbow of character-themed sweatshirts; and a Boy George-lookalike Snoopy.

As the decades rolled on, so too did the Peanuts cast’s style – especially Snoopy. At various points in the strip’s five-decade run, Snoopy flaunted alter-egos and styles that drew from the disco, prepster and grunge eras – a sartorial edge that earned him the moniker ‘Joe Cool’. Snoopy still inspires today. The exhibition’s pièce de résistance is a room full of plush Snoopys and Woodstocks, reimagined by some of America’s most talented fashion designers, from Christopher John Rogers to Bode and Willy Chavarria.

Apart from a wealth of Peanuts storytelling, ‘Snoopy in Style’ features plenty of fodder for the social media set, including Instagram-friendly vignettes, a central café peppered with Peanuts-sillouette chairs, a midcentury-inspired listening room, and even a gift shop curated by Colette founder Sarah Andelman.

But the best bits are ones that surprise, including a section dedicated to Schulz’s friendship with tennis superstar and activist Billie Jean King. Both supported Title IX, a landmark federal civil rights law that prohibited sex-based discrimination in schools, which helped open the door for female athletes everywhere. Two years later, in 1974, King founded the Women’s Sports Foundation and Schulz readily agreed to be a trustee. The Peanuts gang also came along for the ride, from Peppermint Patty criticising inequities in women’s sports, to Lucy quite literally serving as a poster child for King’s foundation. (‘Thank goodness for sports,’ the famously cantankerous cartoon character quipped. ‘If they didn’t exist, I don’t know what I’d do with my tremendous natural ability.’)

Whether you pop by between matches at the US Open or Fashion Week events, ‘Snoopy in Style’ makes one thing clear: you’re a good man, Charlie Brown.

‘Snoopy in Style’ is on view from 2-26 September 2026 at 25 Little West 12th St, New York, NY 10014

John Galliano is out at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Today, following a groundswell of public controversy, the museum announced that it has cancelled plans to proceed with a landmark Costume Institute retrospective of the British fashion designer’s work next May.

‘Following thoughtful discussions with John Galliano, we have together decided not to proceed with the exhibition,’ Max Hollein, the Met’s director and CEO said in a statement.

The show, titled ‘John Galliano: Horizons,’ faced immediate criticism concerning the designer’s past racist and antisemitic comments. Galliano was famously ousted as the creative director of Dior following an antisemitic tirade at a Paris restaurant in 2011, for which he was charged with a hate crime in France.

Though Galliano has publicly apologised for his past behaviour, and the museum met with Jewish leaders and promised to ‘address the derogatory conduct that fundamentally altered his career and public reception,’ the exhibition announcement was met with swift backlash from New York’s Jewish community and beyond – especially at a moment when antisemitic crimes are on the rise. According to the New York Times, museum donors threatened to withdraw funding if the exhibition proceeded.

The controversy ultimately compelled the museum and Galliano to change course. ‘After much reflection and discussion with all those involved, I have decided, with great sadness, that it is best for the exhibition not to take place at this time,’ Galliano said in a statement shared on Instagram.

‘I do not want the debate surrounding me to place the Met in a difficult position or to distract from the remarkable work of the Costume Institute,’ the designer added. ‘I also recognise and respect that an exhibition honouring my work would be painful for some.’

The Costume Institute show would have marked Galliano’s first major museum exhibition, a milestone that would anchor the museum’s glittering Met Ball. In addition to overseeing his eponymous label and Dior, the designer has served as the creative director of Givenchy and Maison Margiela. In its initial announcement, the museum called Galliano ‘one of the most inventive and influential designers of the past four decades.’

The museum has yet to announce plans for a replacement exhibition.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Channeling wabi-sabi style, Matchaful’s new Ritual Bar in Brooklyn offers tea drinkers a moment of zen in a bustling city. In the expanded space, carved from an apartment building near the Williamsburg café, curious minds can take pause to learn about the craft of Japanese tea through guided tastings, matcha whisking ceremonies and more. As these intentional experiences unfold, the intimate atmosphere keeps guests grounded in the present.

‘We realised most people never get the chance to hear the stories behind what they're drinking or learn how it's traditionally prepared,’ Matchaful founder Hannah Habes tells Wallpaper*. ‘The Ritual Bar gives us the opportunity to bring those stories to life.’

Habes enlisted Now or Never (NoN) Studio, a Brooklyn-based interior architecture and design firm, to seamlessly expand the original café, which first opened in 2024 and is one of the brand’s many locations in New York.

The Ritual Bar marks the expansion’s crown jewel. With seating for eight, the cosy space features paper pendant lights by Troy Lighting that produce a soft glow and textured limewash walls that absorb sound. Natural maple and oak wood warm up the space, from the custom bar stools to floating shelves that display ceramics made by local artisans. The green-veined counter, made of Cipollino Verde marble, further mirrors nature.

‘We were drawn to natural materials and textures that feel warm, calming and timeless because we wanted the space to reflect the same care that goes into the teas we source,’ says Habes.

Beyond the Ritual Bar – where walk-ins can also grab a seat across from a tea educator and order from a season menu when reservation-based classes aren’t in session – the café now includes a larger outdoor space. The landscaped patio beckons visitors to settle in during warmer months. A matcha grinder room, where customers can view the traditional stone matcha grinding technique in action from behind a glass window, will also open inside of the café later this year.

Throughout the café, minimal decor leaves room ‘for the guest to notice’ everything, says NoN Studio founder Jamie McGlinchey, from ‘the shadow of daylight’ and ‘the grain of the wood’ to the tea-making processes occurring around them. ‘The design prioritises presence, ritual and ambiance over decoration, allowing the experience and the act of making matcha to remain the focus,’ she says.

‘Above all, we want people to feel welcome,’ Habes adds. ‘Our hope is that wherever someone spends time, they leave feeling more connected.’

Matchaful is located at 92 Berry St, Brooklyn, NY 11249

In our monthly series, we highlight the products, places and experiences we’ve bookmarked – and that you won’t want to miss.

The gallery circuit may be your best ally for escaping the ongoing London heatwave. Fortunately, August’s art calendar offers plenty of respite: from War Child’s Secret 7" project at 180 Studios, where seven musicians each press a track onto 100 vinyls and artists create a one-of-a-kind sleeve for every copy, to John Currin’s women with exaggerated physiques, set against Arcadian backdrops on Savile Row. When you get to lunch, skip the stuffy à la carte marathon – the snack of the summer is the Nepalese momo.

Escaped the city instead? A wise decision. We’re headed to Bali, where the Jia Curated architectural showcase takes over throughout August, and to Puglia, where festival season goes folkloric at La Notte della Taranta. If New York is on your radar, the season’s breakout star is Flaco, Central Park’s famously resilient escaped owl, now the subject of his own documentary, playing in select (air-conditioned) theatres.

The exhibitions: Secret 7”, ‘Portrait of a City’, John Currin

Hannah Silver, art, culture, watches & jewellery editor

August is a great month to enjoy exhibitions usually missed due to the normal hectic schedule. Take this pause before the back-to-school chaos of September and the frantic run-up to Christmas (too early?) to catch some quieter yet brilliant London shows. I'm particularly looking forward to War Child's exhibition of 7" sleeve designs by artists including Clare Twomey, Thierry Noir, Murugiah and Orlando Weeks, which sits nicely at the intersection of music and art. Elsewhere, 'Portrait of a City: A Century of American Photography' at Dulwich Picture Gallery promises to be a beautiful documentation of American urban life, and I hope to finally catch John Currin's masterful paintings at Sadie Coles.

The Secret 7" 2026 sleeves will be displayed at 180 Studios from 18-30 August

Portrait of a City: A Century of American Photography' runs at Dulwich Picture Gallery until 4 October

John Currin: Opening Credits' runs at Sadie Coles until 12 September

The pick-me-up: ‘Wild Inside’

Anna Fixsen, US editor

Everyone and their brother seems to be gushing about The Odyssey, but my summer to-watch list is topped by a different epic: a documentary chronicling the life of Flaco, an intrepid Eurasian eagle-owl who escaped his enclosure at the Central Park Zoo. Flaco, who was born and raised in captivity, went on the lam in February 2023. No one expected him to survive the mean streets of Manhattan – let alone fly and learn how to hunt. But Flaco defied expectations (and capture), going on to become a metaphor for a specific kind of New York City grit and resilience.

Award-winning filmmaker Penny Lane recounts the Flaco story in Wild Inside, a 90-minute film about the avian phenom and his against-the-odds transition into a wild creature. (I myself, during long summer runs in Central Park, would pause to search for Flaco in his favoured oak tree.) This documentary is heartfelt, sure (animal lovers may want to bring a hanky), but it touches on something bigger than New York’s orange-eyed feathered friend – the delicate boundary that divides our built environment and the natural world. Catch Wild Inside in select theatres beginning 31 July.

The dish: Momo

Anna Solomon, digital staff writer

Our art editor swears by House of Momo, the Dalston Nepalese spot known for its half-moon dumplings stuffed with minced meat or vegetables and served with a fiery dipping sauce. A staple across Tibet and the Himalayan region, momo has recently cooked up a reputation as one of London's most satisfying snacks.

So when I heard that Eat Momo – the no-frills Borough Yards canteen founded by sisters Trishna and Dipa Chamling as a tribute to the food they grew up with – had set up shop at my local pub in Leyton, I decided to check it out. Try these pillowy pockets of goodness at Coach and Horses on Leyton High Road, where they’re in residency for the foreseeable future.

The music festival: La Notte della Taranta

Gabriel Annouka, art editor

Forget beach clubs: this August, I'm heading to Puglia for La Notte della Taranta, where the best summer nights happen in small Italian towns rather than crowded resorts. I’m dreaming of hypnotic tambourines, a sea of people dancing pizzica, and a night in Melpignano with Ermal Meta at the helm of this year’s legendary Concertone.

La Notte della Taranta runs until August 23, with 20 stops in different towns across Salento

The cultural event: Jia Curated

Ellie Stathaki, architecture & environment director

If I were going to Bali this summer – I am sadly not! – I'd love to visit Jia Curated, the Bali-based annual gathering founded in 2022 by Budiman Ong, Rudi Winata and Yang Yang Hartono. This year's theme is 'Nature Weave', and, fuelled by the festival's community spirit, one of its architectural offerings, 'Architecture in Scale', zooms in on the work of a selection of architecture studios that consistently weave biophilia into their practice. The exhibition includes 25 models from studios across Indonesia, Singapore, Taiwan and Japan, including Kengo Kuma + Associates, Andramatin, Elora Hardy's Ibuku Studio and Cheng Tsung Feng. A Wallpaper* story by our Singapore editor Daven Wu will follow later this month. Watch this space.

Jia Curated 2026 runs from 13-17 August at Pengembak Beach, Sanur, Bali

There are cities that appear in films, and then there is New York, which has a way of making films appear inside it. A24’s On Location in New York City is built around that premise: a movie lover’s guide to 179 places across the five boroughs that have conquered the silver screen and are still open to this day. Much like our own Wallpaper* Travel Guide series, the volume exudes the charm of pre-internet travel publishing.

There are maps, categories, addresses, telephone numbers, symbols (for cash only, adults only, open late, landmark, and so forth) and an index of all the locations and films mentioned, making it easy to navigate. This is New York, scene by scene.

A24 turns New York into a cinephile itinerary

Celine Song, whose Past Lives (2023) and Materialists (2025) both star the city as itself, opens the tome with a love letter to New York City and to the film crews who make shooting there possible. ‘I love New York. I am in love,’ she writes. ‘I love the parks and the restaurants and the stores and the piers and the sidewalks and the piles of trash and the corners that turn gold with the sunset once a day.’ For Song, the city is ‘ugly, brutal, messy’ as much as it is beautiful, and that is precisely why filmmakers keep returning to it.

The guide spans six categories. Entertainment & Sightseeing covers the city’s monuments, museums, cinemas and theatres, from big-ticket New York fixtures such as the Empire State Building, Radio City Music Hall and Grand Central Terminal – where Terry Gilliam staged 1,000 extras waltzing beneath the concourse’s celestial ceiling for The Fisher King (1991) – to more particular inclusions, such as the Judd Foundation, whose SoHo interiors Adrian Lyne used in 9½ Weeks (1986).

The Shopping section turns the city into a retail set: department stores, bookshops, toy stores, tattoo parlours and diamond dealers. Toy shop FAO Schwarz is the obvious pilgrimage, with Tom Hanks’ giant ‘Walking Piano’ from Big (1988) still in residence after the store’s move to Rockefeller Plaza; the Diamond District brings the more frantic cadence of Uncut Gems (2019), all upstairs rooms and handshake deals. Bergdorf Goodman, meanwhile, gets its own mythology: ‘Unlike Saks Fifth Avenue, Bloomingdale’s and Printemps,’ the book notes, ‘there is only one Bergdorf’s, and it can only be experienced in New York.’

The Eating chapter gives restaurants their due as New York cinema’s great supporting characters. For pop-culture pilgrims, Bubby’s in Tribeca appears in The Devil Wears Prada (2006) as the workplace of Andy’s boyfriend Nate, while Raoul’s in SoHo brings oysters, steak frites and Valentine’s Day melodrama via Sex and the City: The Movie (2008). A must-visit for its pastrami on rye as much as its cinematic credentials, Katz’s Delicatessen made cameos in three films released in 2007 alone, and has its own sign – ‘Where Harry met Sally… hope you have what she had!’ – hanging above the table where Meg Ryan performed the sultry scene. There is also a section for that most democratic of New York film props: the hot dog cart.

For those seeking to extend the night, Nightlife takes the guide to a darker and after-hours territory, moving from old pubs and hotel bars to club rooms built for bad decisions. Basement in Queens, seen in Babygirl (2024), is a concrete techno club beneath Knockdown Center, with a no-photo policy. Sitting on a corner across the street from Tompkins Square Park, 7B (known locally as Horseshoe Bar, for its U-shaped counter, or Vazac’s, from its past as a Polish catering hall) offers the kind of timeless, grimy ambience that is hard to resist.

Parks & Recreation opens up the city’s green spaces, skating rinks, pools, ballfields and strange pockets of leisure. Naturally, Central Park gets the full treatment as New York’s great outdoor set. The book closes with Photo Opportunities: a section for striking the pose where the movies already did. There is the operational Tribeca firehouse from Ghostbusters (1984), Mick Dundee’s lamppost on Fifth Avenue, the Queensboro Bridge view from Manhattan (1979), Times Square as emptied at great expense for Vanilla Sky (2001), and the Statue of Liberty, because even disaster movies need an icon.

As Song puts it, ‘New York City is probably the most photographed city in the world, and for good reason. It is a stunner! Ever-changing, always perfect, endlessly-inspiring, one hell of a city.’

‘On Location in New York City’, available for $36 via A24 or for £28 via Mack Books

Around the turn of the 20th century, the Lido, a seven-mile barrier island in the Venetian Lagoon, was home to some of the grandest hotels in Europe. It inspired Thomas Mann to pen his novella Death in Venice there in 1912, and, two decades later, was so cinematic that it became the home of the Venice Film festival.

Even if you don’t have plans to visit Venice this summer, New York’s Galerie56 is offering the next-best thing – for design buffs, anyway. Now through 17 October, the Manhattan art and design outpost is teaming up with Italy’s prestigious Nilufar gallery on a new exhibition of design rarities called ‘Nilufar Grand Hotel, Vista Mare.’

The residency (Nilufar’s second stateside presentation with Galerie56) is a continuation of the Milanese collectible design powerhouse’s Milan Design Week show, ‘Grand Hotel’, in which gallery founder Nina Yashar reimagined the Nilufar Depot as if it were a sumptuous Old World resort. The New York version, similarly, uses design treasures to conjure a hotel – only this time, one set in the Lido.

‘I found myself returning to the atmosphere of Venice in summer – not Venice as a destination, but Venice as an idea: a place where architecture, water, light, memory and culture merge into a singular, evocative experience,’ said Galerie56 founder, architect Lee Mindel.

Mindel, working with the Nilufar team, hand-selected objects that conjured a sunny beach scene in the Lido – a place the architect first visited as a teenager. An ultra-rare, Formica-topped Carlo Mollino dining table, first designed in 1956, forms an imaginary lobby, flanked by a pair of minimalist wood ‘Miguelito’ chairs by Mexican architect Luis Barragán. Opposite the entrance, a golden ‘40s-era knotted rug designed by Swedish designer Barbro Nilsson forms an expanse of ‘sand’, while a round Fontana Arte cocktail table and whimsical Gabriella Crespi floor lamp evoke the sun and a cheerful beach umbrella, respectively.

Fans of Crespi, the glamorous multidisciplinary Italian designer who rose to fame during the 1950s, will find many delights here, from a carved-wood table lamp in the shape of a frog; to rattan furniture; to a set of gleaming brass drawers created for Christian Dior; to a futuristic metallic floor lamp that sprouts from the floor like buoys floating on the sea. Other design masters, including Gio Ponti, Martino Gamper and the Italian-born Brazilian designer Lina Bo Bardi, make cameos.

One of the most enticing items in the show is actually one of the oldest – a scroll-shaped mirror and shelf designed by Carlo Bugatti. Created in 1902 – a decade before Mann authored Death in Venice – the piece feels at once of its era and strikingly modern, thanks to a stenciled Art Nouveau iris border; embossed copper and mother of pearl decorative elements; and a small hinged cupboard that opens to reveal diminutive drawers and turned columns evocative of Piazza San Marco.

‘They are works of exceptional craftsmanship and beauty, but they also carry stories, cultural references, and emotional resonance,’ Mindel said. ‘“Grand Hotel, Vista Mare” is ultimately a celebration of those connections – an exploration of hospitality, elegance and the enduring romance of Italian design.’

'Grand Hotel, Vista Mare' is on view through 17 October at Galerie56, located at 240 Church Street New York, NY, USA 10013

Last year in Seoul, Minjae Kim presented ten chairs that a carpenter friend had spent a year building and lacquering. The technique was traditional, the kind formally preserved in South Korea and largely absent from contemporary furniture and, for Kim – born in Seoul, based in New York – the first time he had used it in earnest. He had been making furniture for five years, and much of that time had gone into figuring out, on his own terms, what to make of his birthplace.

Kim discovered the US on an exchange in high school. After studying painting and architecture, and completing a stint of military service back home, in 2008 he travelled to Seattle to continue his studies, later moving to New York for an architecture master’s at Columbia University. He spent three years at Studio Giancarlo Valle, then started his own practice from the basement of his old apartment during the pandemic.

His debut in 2021 at LA design gallery Marta catalogued Western typologies, such as a chair adapted from Freud's personal study. These were objects that differed from his understanding of the world, and he made them his by remaking them – for example, by treating fibreglass like cloth, quilting it before coating it with resin. The following year, with his mother, the painter Myoungae Lee, he co-presented an exhibition at Matter Projects in New York: four pieces drew on her work, including a chair inspired by one of her Coexistence paintings.

Press attention after the two shows fixed on his heritage in ways Kim did not recognise in the work itself. ‘If it wasn't me making it,' he says, ‘nobody would say this has a Korean tradition.' His response was the next show, with Nina Johnson Gallery in Miami, titled ‘IYKYK' (If You're Korean You Know). Here Kim made moon jars from fibreglass rope and lights based on ceremonial robes. The Korean references were unmistakable; he has described his spirit at the time as almost punk, ‘I'll show you how to do it.'

Three years ago, an invitation arrived from non-profit cultural foundation Arumjigi to bring the IYKYK approach to a South Korean audience. It softened and matured what had been a somewhat defiant gesture, and led, in time, to the lacquered ‘Seoul' chairs. In the Marta show ‘Phantom-22', in 2025, Kim switched focus again, to LA, a city where a mountain lion, who had crossed the freeways into Griffith Park, settled and died, had become a local icon. Kim's sculpture took the cougar's name, P-22; the phantom of the exhibition’s title referenced ‘the spectres of the city… creatures, ideas, and topographies that define Los Angeles’. The production furniture was made in California, and carried Kim's touch in its cast-resin handles.

Kim has spoken of fighting a lonely fight in New York with references people around him are not likely to recognise. However, he notes that as South Korea itself has become globally visible in recent years, he has had to explain himself less and the gap has narrowed. Going home is still double-edged, he says: he stands out, he tries to blend in. ‘The identity crisis,' he says, ‘has been kind of melting away.' In September 2026, he will show with Marta at Frieze Seoul.

minjae.kim

This article appears in the August 2026 Issue of Wallpaper*, available now in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

For Steffany Tran, the Vietnamese-American founder of New York-based studio Vy Voi, objects become storytellers. Their materials, form and construction reflect longstanding cultural traditions, which she interprets through her own voice. ‘I describe my practice as almost like using a metal detector and finding nuggets in history,' she says.

Tran, whose parents are both refugees, grew up between San José, California, and Saigon, where she spent summers visiting her family. Thanks to her cross-cultural upbringing, ‘I could weave in and out of both of those identities very cleanly,' she says. ‘That openness and tenderness to what those identities are really shaped how I am as a person and my practice as well. I'm not coming from an outsider's gaze.'

After studying industrial design in the San Francisco Bay Area, Tran moved to New York, where she worked in traditional firms including Lippincott and Smart Design. The fast pace and problem-solving briefs were not exactly aligned with her personal interest in the art of making, so she took up ceramics at a local community centre as a creative outlet. There, she focused on perfecting the loose gestural glazing found in Vietnamese pottery. Eventually, she decided to dedicate all her time to creating handmade objects inspired by Vietnamese craft, which she felt were missing from the contemporary design world. ‘It was almost an exercise in this idea of if you can't find it, build it yourself,' Tran says.

Tran's Vietnam trips began to include visits to libraries and meetings with art historians and anthropologists to build her vocabulary around Vietnamese design and craft. She was particularly interested in how contemporary studios continued age-old traditions and reflected different sensibilities compared to East Asian aesthetics. This line of inquiry led her to dó, a textured paper made from tree bark that has been produced in Vietnam for over 800 years. She met one of the few families in the country who continue to make the material, and used it to design lamps, creating oblong shapes inspired by traditional kites, as well as welcoming, rounded silhouettes. Her newest collection derives its form from folded banana leaves, a core ingredient in Vietnamese cooking.

Tran is currently developing a new body of work based on her latest obsession: 17th-century Vietnamese lacquer, which was commonly applied to musical instruments and furniture with decorative inlays. ‘Design has the ability to make the seemingly unknown – and sometimes as a result, overlooked – feel more familiar and distinct,' Tran says. ‘If we can understand and covet Korean moon jars, Japanese joinery or Italian glass, I think we can make space for Vietnamese lacquer art and Lao weaving, too.'

The ultimate Vy Voi project is about expanding cultural vocabulary, democratising important narratives, and affirming human experience through captivating objects. So far the results have been heartwarming. ‘One of the most fulfilling things about doing this is when people message me to say, “I loved hearing the story”,' says Tran.

vyvoi.com

This article appears in the August 2026 Issue of Wallpaper*, available now in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

This article appears in the August 2026, Creative America issue of Wallpaper*, available from 2 July in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

For Keith Haring, New York was a blank canvas, becoming a central piece of his artistic identity after he moved to the city in 1978. It shaped an aesthetic located at the intersection of urban art and activism, which Haring cultivated in the 1980s alongside peers Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat. They led a movement that brought art into the public space, in murals or on the subway, a crucial factor for Haring in raising awareness for fraught and urgent topics such as AIDS and education about drugs.

Born in New York, it was an energy that spread around the world, taking shape in an instantly recognisable shared visual language, a fluidity celebrated now with an exhibition, ‘Keith Haring: A World in Motion’, at New York art space 60 White.

‘Haring did not simply travel the world, he entered into dialogue with it,’ says Carlo McCormick, who curated the exhibition in collaboration with Lio Malca. ‘His work pulses with the energy of New York street culture while reflecting the histories, images, and rhythms of the places he encountered. The result is a global conversation, joyful, immediate, and profoundly connected.’

Recreated in 60 White’s multistorey space is San Francisco nightclub DV8, a hedonistic playground of the 1980s-90s that featured murals painted by Haring. This kind of community element is central to Haring’s work, and is also epitomised in his chalk drawings on black paper, which became familiar sights on the New York subway, and the Sister Cities – For Tokyo painting that he created in 1985, marking the friendship between New York and Tokyo, a bold and brilliant tribute to two cities he loved.

Adds Malca: ‘Keith Haring’s work is rooted in New York, but it belongs to the world. This exhibition highlights his ability to connect people through a shared visual language that remains as immediate and powerful today as it was in the 1980s.’

‘Keith Haring: A World in Motion’ is at 60 White, sixtywhite.com

Olalekan Jeyifous is a builder of provocative futures. For ‘Hydricosmic Litanies', a new solo exhibition at the Walker Art Center (6 August 2026 – 3 January 2027), the Brooklyn-based artist, a trained architect and a Wallpaper* US400 honoree, imagined a society in Minneapolis that evolved around the ecology of the Mississippi River, which flows through the heart of the city. Working like an archaeologist discovering and documenting this culture, Jeyifous created digital collages of the cityscape, with highways that once displaced Black neighbourhoods transforming into waterways that sustain aquaculture, travel and housing. A series of 3D-printed sculptures depict the industrial, technical and cultural artefacts that this society produced and deities that protect them.

‘I'm always dusting off the fragments and figuring out who lived there, what they looked like, and what was important to them,' he says.

Meet architect-trained artist Olalekan Jeyifous

Jeyifous' worlds emerge from different parameters and narratives, but they share throughlines: communal societies, close relationships between people and natural ecosystems, and joyful Black life.

For ‘The Frozen Neighborhoods’, which appeared in MoMA's ‘Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America', he conducted a similar excavation of a society in which mobility was restricted. In ‘ACE/AAP', which won the Silver Lion award at the 2023 Venice Biennale, he depicted a world in which Pan-Africanism and decolonisation of the continent were successful, ushering in an era of renewable energy innovation and environmental restoration based on Indigenous land stewardship.

Jeyifous has become one of the leading artistic thinkers of our time. He rejects inevitable conclusions and instead sees alternative futures that invite us all to reconsider the trajectory we're on and what course-corrections might look like.

‘At a moment when so many of our social and ecological crises are also crises of imagination, Jeyifous' work offers something rare: a speculative language equal to the complexity of the world we actually inhabit,' says Taylor Jasper, the curator of ‘Hydricosmic Litanies'. ‘His practice understands that the future is sedimented in the past, shaped by what has been engineered, inherited, broken and remade. He gives us a way to think about culture as something tidal: always moving between what has been lost, what remains, and what might still be made.'

Born in Nigeria but raised in the US, Jeyifous wanted to be an architect from a young age, but was especially interested in cultural critique and using research, world-building and visualisation to provoke conversation. His thesis applied the Yoruba myth of the Abiku child (a spirit that is born to the human world only to die young and repeat the cycle because it does not want to inhabit the painful, unjust world of people, preferring to exist in the idealistic supernatural realm) to postcolonial nation-building and architecture's role in making spaces that support new systems.

Jeyifous identifies with the Abiku child's cycle-breaking. ‘I do not like what has been made of the world,' he says. ‘We could have built a world where different countries and different cultures respect each other.'

Jeyifous uses tools such as hand drawing, photo montage, collage and AI visualisations to design what he calls protopias. Distinct from utopias, which present unrealistic perfect worlds, protopias acknowledge an ongoing project. For this approach, Mabel O Wilson – chair of the African American and African diaspora studies department at Columbia University, and co-curator of ‘Reconstructions' – has called Jeyifous ‘the next Lebbeus Woods', referring to the cult figure who used visionary drawings to drive conversation about politics and ideology. ‘He's deeply committed to understanding architectural representation but using it as a language to point to the kinds of things that are going on socially and culturally,' Wilson says, noting how his work traces its lineage to Afrofuturism and hip-hop sampling.

Until 2004, Jeyifous worked as an architectural renderer. It paid the bills, but it wasn't creatively nourishing, so he decided to take a leap into art-making full-time while completing rendering projects on the side to support his work. By 2016, his public art commissions had grown larger and more frequent, and he was able to stop freelancing. He soon won a fellowship at the Socrates Sculpture Park and prestigious residencies at MacDowell in New Hampshire and the Headlands Center for the Arts in California.

After receiving a commission for a sculpture at Coachella in 2017, his practice took off. He has elevated a New York subway station with glass panels; created an installation at the threshold of the National Public Housing Museum in Chicago, in collaboration with artist Amanda Williams; and is working on a monument for Shirley Chisholm, who, in 1968, became the first Black woman to be elected to Congress.

Yoruban spirituality is at the heart of Jeyifous' world-building. It's a particular focus of ‘Ancestral Ecologies', an exhibition on show at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden until 25 October 2026. Created in collaboration with New York firm AD-WO, the installation features sculptures made from earthen tiles, recycled glass, material designed to decompose, and garlands inspired by African trade beads. Encountering these sculptures in the garden feels almost like stepping into a quiet moment within one of his verdant renderings.

‘There's a soft touch to environmental justice that he brings to the discourse that I really appreciate,' says Emanuel Admassu, co-founder of AD-WO. ‘We share a political agenda, and the way we think about liberation is not necessarily through big explosive gestures, but folks just tending to plants, folks spending time together with their family, and a lush, green environment.'

‘Hydricosmic Litanies' is on show from 6 August 2026 – 3 January 2027 at Walker Art Center. ‘

Ancestral Ecologies' is on show until 25 October 2026 at Brooklyn Botanic Garden

More on the artist at jeyifo.us

New York artist Jordan Eagles was biking along the East River three years ago when he noticed a man with a sports jersey that read 'The Mets are in our blood.' A lifelong fan of the legendary baseball team, Eagles was struck by the bodily immediacy of the emblazoned slogan.

Eagles swiftly turned to eBay to track down the shirt. As it happened, the merchandise was handed out to blood donor fans at the team’s stadium, Citi Field. After customising the top into a muscle t-shirt for his gym workouts, however, the artist realised he was deprived from truly owning the jersey for what it promotes. 'I could not earn this shirt although I was captivated by my own love of the Mets,' he tells Wallpaper*.

While the artist has been creating works with real animal blood since the 1990s, Eagles himself cannot be a blood donor, owing to being on PrEP, the medication that drastically reduces the risk of contracting HIV. The irony was not lost on the artist, and is the focus of a powerful ongoing exhibition, 'Bases Loaded', on view at Pioneer Works in Brooklyn.

The show features 13 of the same Mets jerseys with blood of an undetectable HIV-positive man splashed across them. The grouping of orange and grey uniforms echo the total number of defensive and offensive players on the baseball field, yet here, devoid of perspiring bodies, they become drenched in another form of corporeality. The exhibition also features nine mixed media resin sculptures shaped in the form of a home plate – the base players must touch in order to score a run.

Gay men in the US have long faced stigma around blood donation. After decades of a ban on gay and bisexual men’s choice to donate blood, the FDA eased the restriction in 2023 and began imposing questions about sexual history to any potential donor. The questionnaire, as Eagles notes, still has a bias towards anal intercourse and HIV status. PrEP users cannot donate unless they stop taking the pill for three months.

The politics of blood has long concerned Eagles who has utilised real blood of gay men in myriad forms. From soaking vintage Superman cartoons with blood at an exhibition at the Princeton University Art Museum to projecting close-up blood blotches at institutions such as the Getty and High Museum of Art, the artist has made the public intimate with the spine-chilling tactility of the life-giving fluid.

The show at the Brooklyn multimedia art space, however, holds a deeper personal bond for Eagles. Besides Eagles's own blood and that of the anonymous donor, some of the resin sculptures contain the blood of the artist’s father. As the figure who exposed the artist to Mets fandom and a symbol of familial blood lineage, the inclusion embodies the son’s reckoning with his own reality and his innate need to fit in. Inside a series of resin sculptures, meanwhile, the artist has suspended family photos, in which everyone wears Mets T-shirts, in blood. Other works contain needles, face masks or baseball cards blend with the densely red fluid.

'This project invites the public to think about policy but it is also more broadly about identity, belonging and what it means to be be a part of something,' Eagles says.

Besides the immediate tactility of the works on view, the slipperiness of semantics unifies them and the seemingly disparate realms of sports and sexuality. From the show’s suggestive title to baseball sayings such as 'first base,' 'innings' or 'receivers,' the linguistic flirt between the game and gay sex imbues a playfulness to the otherwise heavy subject.

'Blood in language is often used to be divisive as well, but I am also thinking about my own life and ways of belonging to a community and wanting to be a part of a team that ultimately you are not permitted to be a part of,' Eagles says.

'Jordan Eagles: Bases Loaded' is on view at Pioneer Works through 9 August 2026

Felice’s newest New York restaurant opens at one of Flatiron’s most privileged corners, where Fifth Avenue meets 26th Street beside Madison Square Park. Set inside a 21-storey neo-Gothic building completed in 1912, the site gives the family-run Italian brand a dining room with unusual scale, daylight from three sides and a strong connection to the street.

Wallpaper* dines at Felice Flaitron, New York

The mood: go big and come home

Since opening on Manhattan’s Upper East Side in 2007, Felice has grown to fourteen locations across New York, Connecticut and Florida. Designed by local studio Bonetti/Kozerski Architecture, Felice Flatiron is arguably the brand’s most architecturally ambitious opening to date. The room boasts 18ft ceilings, windows on three sides and a Fifth Avenue presence that changes with the light. Afternoon sun cuts across amber banquettes, pale tablecloths and warm timber.

‘We wanted the space to feel instantly familiar but elevated in every detail, Tuscany in its materials, New York in its energy,’ says Enrico Bonetti, co-founder of Bonetti/Kozerski Architecture.

The design works through proportion, material and cathedral-like drama: custom Italian oak millwork crafted in Florence, Chianti terracotta sourced from Tuscany, deep red blinds, leather seating, soft pendant lamps and a 30ft illuminated wine wall. At the centre is Felice’s largest bar to date, wrapped in Grigio Versilia marble and engineered to be the restaurant’s social anchor.

The food: all-day entertainment

The menu stays close to Felice’s Tuscan roots: seasonal ingredients, regional recipes, signature pastas and dishes made for sharing. New to Flatiron is the Il Toscano Plate, with rotating salumi, pecorino, olives and crostini, alongside a tableside tiramisu cart and an interactive amaro station.

Wine remains central. The by-the-glass list champions small producers, with Italian bottles joined by selections from Spain, California and elsewhere. A ‘Back to Natural’ section brings in low-intervention wines, while the cocktail programme leans full dolce vita: Dirty Martini Spritz, aperitivo drinks, and a nightcap menu running from Amaro Shakerato to Affogato Martini.

Felice Flatiron is located at 220 5th Ave, New York, NY 10001, United States

FOOD was a cultural hub and restaurant in the early 1970s on the corner of Prince and Wooster streets in SoHo, New York, where it blended the rituals of dining with an experimental spirit. Robert Rauschenberg and Donald Judd crafted performative dishes while the restaurant’s co-founder Carol Goodden turned soups into paintings. In its three-year life, the restaurant saw its other cofounder Gordon Matta-Clark turn bones into necklaces. Today, a norm-pushing edge is a memory in this downtown pocket of soaring lofts and posh boutiques, but the New Museum remains something of a hub for the bygone avant-garde spirit. The institution’s recent doubling of its exhibition space by OMA has finally made possible an essential that many of peers have long enjoyed: a restaurant.

Oberon opens this week (7 July 2026) with 90 seats inside the 60,000 sq ft expansion, in the form of a self-contained black box on the ground floor. Brooklyn-based restaurant group The Oberon operates the eatery with a menu created by chefs Julia Sherman and Ali Ghriskey. The hospitality group’s founder and managing partner Henry Rich sees an opportunity in the New Museum’s alchemy of heritage and a downtown sensibility. ‘The museum straddles the world of New York institutions and edgy galleries around here,’ he tells Wallpaper* and says the non-profit holds a ‘unicorn position with a stature and a commitment to most forward-looking art’.

The non-collecting museum has held a pivotal role in career-making exhibitions for many global artists, yet it had lacked a proper restaurant throughout its 49-year history – in its first eatery, cork anchors the visual statement. Without a direct contact with Bowery Street, the interior wraps its guests as a concentrated experience in which the dominant material appears in five different ways, both in recognisable and distinct qualities.

OMA partner Shohei Shigematsu and associate Jake Forster who oversaw the expansion planned the pocket inside the overall metallic mesh and steel-heavy building to, as Shigematsu puts it, ‘complement the rest of the series of gallery spaces’. Besides FOOD, their mood board included the community gardens peppered throughout SoHo and Lower East Side. ‘We looked into communal spaces that have brought artists together and conceived the restaurant as its own volume,’ he says. A generous potpourri of plants outlines the opaque window, which lets museum-goers notice diners’ silhouettes within the silver-leaf cork exterior. Inside, Portuguese company Sofalca created black cork surfaces through a process in which the negative-footprint carbon-absorbing material is heated to extreme temperatures and blended with resin to yield large monolithic blocks. A series of textural cork domes, created by CNC milling, form overhead booths with serrated cork around their perimeters. An intensely textured cork ceiling in the centre is suspended above 20 or so two-seater wooden tables designed by Minjae Kim.

The Brooklyn-based designer says the main challenge in his first restaurant commission was to implement his vision into a fully-baked vision. ‘I responded to the inventive use of cork with texture and warmth,’ he says. For the 30ft bar, he summoned the technique of sanding into the grain of ash wood for a distressed rippling texture, with a lacquer finish. Kim also designed nine quilted fibreglass pendants through a process of running woven fibreglass in a sewing machine for an ornate sculptural effect, in contrast to the sturdy cork-led interior.

While enjoying meals such as a classic hamburger and martini pairing, art-loving diners can curb their visual appetite with Ian Cheng’s video installation behind the bar. The New York artist, known for his contemplative live simulations and real-time animations, here delivers dancing visuals, alive with a moody energy. In an homage to FOOD’s Fluxus roots, avant-garde artist Laurie Anderson provides a farewell to diners in the form of poems she has penned for the wrappings of parting chocolates.

Steps away from the surrounding neighborhood’s bustle, the hermetic culinary experience interprets cork’s thick hug into sculptural accents, complemented by a textural use of wood and a generous wash of greenery. ‘We are privileged to cater to a community that already likes to hang out,’ says Rich.

The New York Metropolitan Baseball Club was established in 1962 to soothe fans still reeling from the departure of the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants. In pursuit of larger audiences and new stadiums, both beloved franchises relocated to California after the 1957 season, closing the chapter on New York’s so-called golden era of baseball.

From the outset, the Mets’ emblem (largely unchanged since its debut)was conceived as an act of reconciliation. Its dark blue field and baseball motif nod to the Brooklyn Dodgers, while the Dutch orange and interlocking 'NY' on the logo’s first version evoke the New York Giants’ branding. The result was a carefully crafted homage.

Selected from hundreds of entries in a public competition, the design was created by Ray Gotto, a prolific cartoonist best known for his syndicated baseball strips Ozark Ike and Cotton Woods. The former Navy illustrator who was living in New York City at the time approached the brief with an understanding of what was truly at stake. Though the Mets would play in Queens (as rival New York Yankees were based in the Bronx) Gotto sensed that an emblem that could unite the entire city was needed.

To foreground the Mets’ name, Gotto drew a symbolic New York skyline using a medley of landmarks from various boroughs. From left to right, he included a silhouette of a church spire, the Williamsburgh Savings Bank, the Woolworth Building, the Empire State Building, and the United Nations headquarters. A suspension bridge anchors the composition, all of it contained within the circular frame of a baseball. Originally rendered in black and pink per the logo design contest guidelines, the palette was later revised to blue, orange, and white at the team’s request—colours that also echo New York City’s tricolour flag.

In the decades since, the Mets have cycled through owners, managers, stadiums, and uniforms, yet Gotto’s skyline, stitched in blue and orange, has endured. More than branding, the Mets logo has become a fiercely guarded emblem within the 'Mets Nation.' In 2014, eagle-eyed fans noticed a subtle alteration to the logo on the club’s social media accounts. They decried that the United Nations building appeared to have been mysteriously altered to resemble the Citigroup Center tower. Whether a sneaky marketing gesture or a digital prank, the change vanished almost as quickly as it appeared. The Mets denied making any revisions to the official mark.

'The Ray Gotto design makes sense,' says Walter Bernard, former art director of New York, Time and Fortune, and a longtime Mets fan. 'Most baseball fans love their teams’ history and traditions, and the Mets logo carries so much tradition that change simply isn’t necessary.'

The logo first appeared in print in November 1961, about five months before the Mets took the field. It fulfilled its purpose brilliantly: fans swiftly bought into the new franchise and snapped up tickets to games. Gotto was paid $1,000 (around $11,000 today)—a respectable fee at the time, but a bargain in retrospect for an enduring mark that helps sell millions of dollars of merchandise for one of baseball's most valuable franchises.

By its sheer ubiquity, I ❤️ NY may be the world's most appropriated logo. Some 50 years after it was first introduced, New York state's official brandmark has become an all-purpose shorthand for allegiance and affection for anything, anywhere.

Milton Glaser and the I ❤️ NY logo

Curiously, I ❤️ NY was born during a time when there was little to love about New York City. Designed by Milton Glaser in the mid-1970s, the logo originally served as the graphic punchline to an advertising campaign that helped rescue the city from the brink of bankruptcy. Desperate to arrest its ballooning fiscal deficit, city officials funded a campaign that could lure tourists back to the Big Apple. Wells, Rich, Greene, helmed by the trailblazing ad executive Mary Wells Lawrence, produced it; songwriter Steve Karmen wrote an earworm of a jingle, and Glaser was asked to create a logo.

Working pro bono without a contract, Glaser quickly sketched a mark consisting of the tagline spelled out in all caps and divided between two black lozenge shapes. The city accepted it without changes. But a few days later he had another thought.

Doodling on the cab ride from his home to the office, as he often did, Glaser drew a red heart paired with the letters 'I' and 'NY' rendered in a friendly font. He chose American Typewriter – a slab serif with a certain 1970s flair – and worked with longtime studio assistant George Leavitt to slightly tweak it. Decades before the proliferation of emoji, some worried that the rebus-like construction would confuse people. Nevertheless, New York City adopted Glaser's second proposal, and soon made it the official tourism logo for the entire state.

Copycats emerged almost immediately. What makes I ❤️ NY remarkable is its portability. In Glaser's personal files one can find knick-knacks bearing variations of his logo – I ❤️ Macedonia, I ❤️ Ngorongoro, I ❤️ Rhodes – sent by friends and fans. Fashion brands like Chanel, Coach, Kate Spade, and Raf Simons have produced collections around the logo, while bootleg trinkets emblazoned with variations on I ❤️ NY abound. The state ultimately secured a copyright in the mid-1990s and earns tens of thousands of dollars in licensing fees each year.

A heavy legacy

Over the decades, every article about Glaser tended to circle back to I ❤️ NY. Its widespread popularity became his calling card and also a kind of creative prison. 'It's something I wish people would forget,' he said in a 2016 New York Times profile. 'I've done other things.'

Indeed, the 2009 National Medal of Arts honoree had achieved many other things, including co-founding New York magazine, designing beautiful restaurants, and producing hundreds of beloved posters, album covers and book jackets. Glaser’s abecedarium of logos includes marks for Brooklyn Brewery, DC Comics, and Italian gelato maker Sammontana. Yet nothing quite matched the universal impact of I ❤️ NY – perhaps only his iconic 1966 Bob Dylan poster counts as a distant second.

Glaser, who passed away on his birthday in 2020, never lost sight of the logo's original purpose as a civic symbol. I ❤️ NY, at its core, is a cri de coeur for resilience. In the aftermath of 9/11, Glaser appended it with the words 'More Than Ever', added a burn mark where the Twin Towers once stood, and gave the grieving city a ready-made banner. The same poster re-emerged in shop windows and food carts during the coronavirus pandemic.

In 2023, New York City felt compelled to modernise Glaser's logo. The woeful ‘We ❤ NYC’ rebrand was swiftly dismissed as a flop. The flood of complaints about it confirmed one thing: ferocious affection for Glaser's original. In an era when brand loyalty is elusive, the logo conceived half a century ago remains, somehow, irreplaceable.

miltonglaser.com

This article appears in Wallpaper’s August 2026 Creative America issue, available from 4 July, in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

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

Talk of New York's real estate scene currently centres on 262 Fifth Avenue, a new residential tower rising on one of Manhattan's most famous streets. Standing 860 feet and 52 storeys tall, the project marks the first New York collaboration between Meganom and Norm Architects, with Five Points Development Group behind its delivery. Italian design house Molteni&C was tapped to furnish the interiors; today, Wallpaper* takes a look inside.

In a skyline increasingly defined by its density, 262 Fifth Avenue takes a more restrained approach. The building comprises just 26 full-floor and duplex residences, allowing generosity of space to become its defining luxury. That sense of deliberation continues in the architecture itself: each home is column-free, creating uninterrupted living spaces – and uninterrupted views of Manhattan.

Norm Architects, responsible for the interiors, describe each residence as a ‘sanctuary in the sky’ – places of calm that sit above the city's tumult while remaining intrinsically connected to it. The Copenhagen studio draws on its understated vocabulary of natural materials, fine craftsmanship and muted tones, producing spaces that feel subtly luxurious rather than ostentatious.

Molteni&C contributes two of the home's defining architectural elements: the 'Prime' kitchen and the 'Gliss Master Filo Door' wardrobe system. Installed throughout every residence, the kitchen combines natural stone and wood veneers which harmonise with the palette of tactile, understated finishes. Its pared-back geometry lends the living spaces a soothing architectural rhythm, balancing New York's metropolitan sensibility with the material rigour of Italian craftsmanship.

The partnership builds on Molteni&C's longstanding history of collaborating with architects and developers on landmark residential buildings. At 262 Fifth Avenue, the brand showcases a level of craftsmanship that has room to breathe, helping the tower stand apart in an increasingly homogeneous landscape of Manhattan luxury developments.

Juergen Teller’s portrait of Yves Saint Laurent, made in Paris in 2000 when the designer was in his mid-sixties, is a striking photograph. Furthermore, it speaks to the great fondness Saint Laurent maintained for the medium and its practitioners throughout his life.

‘He was interested in each new generation,’ asserts the photography historian Simon Baker, co-curator of the new exhibition, ‘Yves Saint Laurent and Photography’. ‘There are all these incredibly flattering images of him looking beautiful and elegant by people he loved, then Juergen comes along at a late part in his career and life… It’s so brave and wonderful as an older man. The image is iconic.’

‘Yves Saint Laurent and Photography’ at New York’s International Center of Photography

At the International Center of Photography (ICP) in New York, where the exhibition, which is organised in collaboration with the Musée Yves Saint Laurent Paris and Fondation Pierre Bergé–Yves Saint Laurent, runs through 28 September 2026, Teller’s portrait is blown up to gigantic proportions and affixed to a bubblegum-pink wall. ‘It really makes me smile,’ says Baker. ‘I think it’s fantastic.’ Originally commissioned for 2025’s Rencontres d’Arles (an accompanying book, published by Phaidon, was released in September), the exhibition has been revised and now includes a more in-depth exploration of how New York, to which Saint Laurent first travelled in 1957, featured in the designer’s life. Baker, additionally, is joined by curators Nastasia Alberti and Clémentine Cuinet, deputy head of collections and head archivist and head of photography, respectively, at the Musée.

Separated into two parts – a more traditional white cube space and a second ‘cabinet of curiosities’-styled room – the ICP exhibition comprises nearly 300 photographs and archival objects from the 1950s through to the 2000s: portraits of Saint Laurent (such as Irving Penn’s photograph of the then 21-year-old, newly installed as the head of Dior), photographs of the collections – among them Helmut Newton’s standout shot of model Vibeke Knudsen in Le Smoking – as well as magazines, contact sheets, and personal Polaroids that detail how Saint Laurent engaged with the medium in both a personal and professional capacity (and how these intertwined). In a first for the Musée, there are no physical garments on display, a conscious decision to both honour the venue and explore the possibilities of the archives.

‘Yves Saint Laurent is, for sure, the most photographed fashion designer, in the sense that he identified himself very much with the brand,’ says Baker, highlighting one of the show’s core threads. ‘Even before he founded his own house, he worked with Irving Penn and Richard Avedon, and then through his career he had long-term relationships with people like Helmut Newton, William Klein, Horst P Horst.’

‘He cared deeply about art and saw beauty in many things,’ adds Alberti, characterising the genesis of this relationship, which only became more prominent when Saint Laurent met and began working with Pierre Bergé, after which his likeness became properly integrated with the house. ‘The two together were absolute geniuses at marketing,’ Alberti observes, ‘really, really smart.’

Across the Atlantic, Saint Laurent was privy to what Baker describes as ‘the very best of the New York scene’ – indeed, in 1972 he sat for Andy Warhol, while Penn and Avedon were both based there. ‘New York is really, really important for the history of Yves Saint Laurent, because it is where he had his first exhibition at The Met, the retrospective in 1983,’ says Alberti. ‘It was the first time there was an exhibition about a living fashion designer; it had never happened before because fashion design was not seen as art.’ Organised by Diana Vreeland, who had become a consultant for the Costume Institute in 1971 following her dismissal from Vogue, the exhibition would attract almost a million visitors.

Perhaps most overwhelming, however, is how Saint Laurent shaped the way contemporary fashion houses operate, both with regard to adopting an in-house figurehead, and how visual media is employed. ‘Nowadays, almost all designers have behind-the-scenes photographers – Saint Laurent was doing that in the 1960s, so there’s a particular sense of photography being right there in the DNA of the house,’ says Baker. ‘We see Juergen Teller shooting for Marc Jacobs, Vivienne Sassen with Louis Vuitton, but Saint Laurent, again, was very pioneering in photographers having these intimate and extended relationships with brands. It’s impossible now, to imagine a major fashion house not having that attitude, and that integrated sense of photography. Saint Laurent was very early.’

‘Yves Saint Laurent and Photography’ is at the International Center of Photography in New York, until 28 September 2026

Dae Lim started his apparel and lifestyle brand Sundae School based on a cheeky proposition: ‘What if God was Korean and smoked weed every day?’

Eight years later, that concept – a label that would showcase Lim’s rich Korean heritage with an ethos that was equal parts streetwear and stoner – has evolved into a cult New York-based e-commerce brand, known for its distinctly-styled relaxed-fit hoodies, chinos, batik bandanas and, yes, mochi edibles.

The opportunity to open a bricks-and-mortar store offered something more: to cater to Lim’s community. ‘I knew [the location] had to be Chinatown,’ Lim says. ‘The Asian American diaspora started here. We wanted to plant a stake in the ground where our roots are.’

He found the perfect spot in a compact, 450 sq ft storefront on Hester Street, once home to the studio of minimalist artist Sol LeWitt. Conveniently, Dae’s husband Nohar Agadi is an architect, who cut his teeth at Foster + Partners before starting his own studio, Nohar’s Ark.

Much like the garments and accessories Lim and his team design (‘We’ve aimed to distill the hanbok costume tradition in wearable, modern uniforms,’ he says), the flagship is sleek and pared back, with selective embellishments. In particular, Agadi chose to reference the Haeinsa temple in South Gyeongsang Province, South Korea, a Unesco World Heritage List site famous for its collection of Buddhist writings, in his design. At the temple, 80,000 texts are kept in a wooden shelf system, an element Abadu referenced when developing the store’s modular aluminum display system.

The open structure, kit-of-parts seamlessly incorporates screw-in hanging bars and racks. Depending on the use of the flexible space – playing host to a community gathering, launch, or the screening of a World Cup football match – this solution can be easily reconfigured. Above, a grid of light-strip fixtures, developed with lighting designer Frank Favia, mimics the paper lantern canopies that cover traditional temple courtyards.

‘The interesting thing about [Korean temples’ spaces] is that they’re laid out to take visitors on a journey,’ Agadi explains. ‘A series of gates lead them from a secular into a spiritual and sacred world. Here, we're expressing this condition with a layering of different, carefully selected materials, helping people transition off of the street.’

While the room-within-a-room’s modular display system is made up of hyper-engineered aluminum components, the interior is wrapped in light pink (reminiscent of the Korean hibiscus flower) floor-to-ceiling curtains that also help to section off two changing rooms and conceal offices.

Lim, Agadi and co-architect Andy Kim tapped Seoul-based talent Hyunhee Kim to create a series of custom artworks, based on Sundae School’s logo, a clever amalgam of the Korean national emblem emblazoned with the word Ddul (weed in Korean). The insignia carries through the shop on from a large backdrop panel to a custom display table. The same five-petal shape adorns frosted acrylic panes inserted within the shelving system.

Reinterpreted traditional Korean doors imbue the store with an additional layer of architectural resonance. They also help to conceptually welcome in customers and visitors – creating a new type of sacred space for Sundae School’s thriving community.

Sundae School is located at 117 Hester St, New York, NY 10002.

Since the 2026 FIFA World Cup kicked off, it is only to be expected that the world has gone a little football crazy. New York has become a new stomping ground for soccer fans, and to accommodate them, Crosby Studios has designed ‘Home of Football: Home & Away’ (tickets here), a pop-up exhibition created in collaboration with cultural platform Home of Football and arts collective Air Afrique. The exhibition is designed to serve as an interactive space that offers a new perspective on the sport’s enduring legacy.

Football memorabilia is reimagined in New York exhibition

Founded by Harry Nuriev, Crosby Studios is best known for championing a transformative spirit within spaces – from Clive Christian’s London flagship to a reimagined Parisian espresso bar. Located at High Line Nine in New York’s Chelsea Gallery District, the new exhibition is no different. Divided into six chapters, the showcase looks at the codes of sport, art, design, and fashion and how they intersect.

What marks out this exhibition from others is the new viewpoint provided. Designed through Nuriev’s architectural lens, the space is graphical, with acoustic elements to enhance the impact of the presentation. The colour palette alludes to a football field, with hues of mint green, while circles and curvatures integrated within the space nod to the shape of a football and the markings on the pitch.

Memorabilia was selected and curated by Air Afrique, with highlights such as Pelé's 1958 Brazil World Cup jersey and Ronaldo artifacts from Brazil's 2002 World Cup triumph. The presentation also includes more than 60 other match-worn jerseys, as well as trophies, and photographs of defining footballing moments.

Coupled with the display of archival pieces is a new retail concept, The Crosby Shop, a platform to present some of Nuriev’s favourite brands – among them Baccarat, Nothing, publisher Rizzoli, men’s grooming brand Obayaty, and olive estate La Terra Di Neena – including some that will be available in the US for the first time. The shop is also home to Balira Coffee, a café pop-up from former Real Madrid star Sami Khedira, a World Cup-winning player for Germany in 2014, who will make select appearances.

Says Nuriev, ‘This concept is about the clash between football, fashion, and art culture. It is a form of cultural transformism, translating the energy and visual codes of football into a new media format that feels open and accessible, not only to football fans, but also to people discovering this world for the first time. The green is a digital version of the football field colour, and the circles reference both the ball and the centre point of the field, becoming symbols of movement, gathering, and play.’

'Home of Football: Home & Away' is located at High Line Nine, Hudson Yards, 507 W 27th Street, New York, NY 10001 ,until 19 July 2026. Tickets are available here

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

In a waterfront enclave of Red Hook, Brooklyn, a loft in the historic New York Dock Building served as an industrial landmark, a cabinet of curiosities sourced from across the globe, and – above all – the home of interior designer Laurie Blumenfeld and her husband, Robert Russo. Conceived and executed by Blumenfeld's studio, the space takes raw industrial architecture and coaxes it toward warmth and worldliness.

Built in 1910 as a warehouse for the New York Dock Company, the building arrives with all the industrial splendour one might hope for: soaring beamed ceilings, 13ft metal-framed windows, and original concrete columns still bearing traces of graffiti from the building's years as an unofficial street art museum. The structure was reimagined into residences in 2018.

When Blumenfeld arrived, she set out to build on its spirit, treating the home as a kind of autobiography rendered in objects. The result is part gallery, part travel journal, part family heirloom – filled with pieces old and new from South Africa, India, Greece, Peru, Vietnam, Brazil, Turkey and Italy, each woven naturally into the interior rather than displayed as trophies.

Among the most compelling of the apartment's stories: a visit to the Basquiat and Warhol exhibition at Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris led Blumenfeld to commission a large-scale artwork from artist Alex Mitrecey for the living room. Around it, other vignettes unfold – a ceramic bowl from Umbria, a soapstone sculpture from Cape Town, chairs by Brazilian designer Juliana Vasconcellos alongside ‘Wassily’ chairs, Marcel Breuer's 1925 Bauhaus classic.

Recreate the mood

The neutral palette – black, taupe, ivory, gunmetal gray and white – serves a dual purpose: canvas for the eclectic objects on show, and complement to the building's industrial character. Powder-coated black metal echoes the factory-style window frames and threads through the kitchen, office and bedroom. Cerused wood, sheepskin, travertine and glass bring warmth, while colour arrives deliberately – through large-scale art and a striking antique concave mirror in the primary bedroom.

Then there are moments that depart from the script entirely. The powder room, draped in Farrow & Ball's ‘Paean Black’ in limewash and anchored by an asymmetrical vanity in Cipollina Ondulato Rosso marble, is moody and immersive – a world apart from the airy openness of the living areas.

Yet for all its gallery-like qualities, there is no mistaking this loft for anything other than a home. Russo loves to cook, and the bespoke kitchen storage system – a sculptural centrepiece that immediately draws the eye – was designed with dinner parties in mind. Each room also carries an original piece designed by Blumenfeld's studio: a personal signature that runs through the whole.

Red Hook, Blumenfeld says, is ‘a place where past and present coexist effortlessly’ – and the loft holds true to that: industrial and intimate, globally sourced and place-specific.

'Everything about Diane was creativity personified,' said Francis Ford Coppola, the director of The Godfather trilogy, on hearing news of Diane Keaton’s death in 2025. Keaton had played Kay Adams Corleone in the films, one of several defining roles in a career that spanned more than five decades, across acting, directing, and writing. Her performances in Annie Hall, which earned her an Academy Award, Reds, Father of the Bride, and Something's Gotta Give established her as one of the defining screen presences of American cinema. Off screen, her oversized tailoring, hats, and menswear-inspired silhouettes cemented her status as a style icon, while her New York Times bestselling books California Romantica (2007) and The House that Pinterest Built (2017) extended her influence into architecture, interiors, and design.

This summer, the Diane Keaton Collection, a four-part auction series organised by Bonhams in partnership with The Fine Art Group, unfolds across New York and Los Angeles throughout June. Comprising more than 550 lots, the sales assemble the artefacts of Keaton’s life, from iconic wardrobe pieces and film memorabilia to the books, artworks, and domestic objects that populated her homes. Here, we highlight eight standout lots that offer insight into the people she loved, the films she made, the homes she built, the styles she cultivated, and the objects she chose to live with.

David Wojnarowicz’s Untitled (Buffalos) (1988-89). Estimate: US $25,000-35,000

Diane Keaton’s collection extended beyond fashion and film memorabilia to artworks displayed throughout her home, a 1926 Spanish-style house in Beverly Hills designed by Wallace Neff. A photograph by David Wojnarowicz appeared in the master bedroom alongside Western furniture and graduated Bauer pottery, reflecting the eclectic sensibility that shaped her interiors.

Created between 1988 and 1989, Untitled (Buffalos) followed a visit by Wojnarowicz to the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, where he encountered a diorama depicting Plains bison driven over cliffs. Having recently been diagnosed with AIDS, Wojnarowicz used the scene as an allegory for the government’s response to the epidemic. The falling buffalo became a symbol of abandonment and collective loss, themes that recurred throughout his work as he confronted homophobia, censorship and mortality. A lifelong admirer of California and the American West, Keaton also collected landscapes by Maynard Dixon and Ed Mell. Her photography book collection is also represented in the sale, with first editions by William Eggleston and Annie Leibovitz, among others.

Two framed mixed media collages by Diane Keaton. Estimate: US$1,000-1,500

Keaton’s interest in collage dates back to childhood. In her memoir Then Again, she recalled visiting the 1961 ‘Art of Assemblage’ exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art with her family and becoming captivated by the boxes of Joseph Cornell. ‘As soon as we got home, I decided to collage my entire bedroom wall,’ she wrote. The fascination was encouraged by her mother, Dorothy Hall, who filled 85 journals with scrapbook entries, photographs and collaged pages. Keaton carried the practice into adulthood, spending evenings making collages while trying to establish herself as an actor in New York and appearing in Broadway productions, including Hair. ‘I did a lot of collages. I couldn’t stop myself,’ she said in 2022. ‘I was really playing around with fantasies all the time.’

An original Annie Hall script. Estimate: $2,000-$4,000

An original mimeographed script for Annie Hall appears in the auction, bound in a red cover and inscribed ‘UNTITLED FILM SCRIPT / 4/15/76’, alongside two loose pages marked ‘NEW ENDING’. The 133-page document captures an earlier stage in the development of a film that would become one of the defining works of 1970s American cinema. Released in 1977, Annie Hall was the fourth collaboration between Diane Keaton and Woody Allen, earning four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best Actress for Keaton.

The film also crystallised an aesthetic she would carry long beyond the screen: ties, oversized tailoring, hats and menswear reworked into something unmistakably her own. Allen developed the character with Keaton specifically in mind, drawing loosely on aspects of her personality and their earlier relationship. Even the title combined her childhood nickname, ‘Annie’, with her surname, Hall. Recalling the experience in her memoir, Then Again, Keaton wrote: ‘Filming Annie Hall was effortless… no one had any serious expectations.’ Allen encouraged her to ‘wear what you want to wear’, helping create a wardrobe that would become one of cinema’s most enduring style references.

A souvenir programme from the original Broadway production of Play It Again, Sam. Estimate: US$200-300

Before Annie Hall and long before her status as a Hollywood fixture, Diane Keaton starred as Linda Christie in the original 1969 Broadway production of Play It Again, Sam. Included in the sale is a souvenir programme from the production, together with a publicity photograph from the 1972 film adaptation, in which Keaton reprised the role opposite Woody Allen and Tony Roberts. The production ran for 453 performances at the Broadhurst Theatre and earned Keaton a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Play. It was during auditions for Play It Again, Sam that Keaton first met Allen, with their professional collaboration quickly developing into a romantic relationship. Play It Again, Sam was the first film Allen made with Keaton. The pair went on to collaborate on eight films between 1971 and 1993, including Annie Hall, Sleeper and Manhattan.

A pair of Louis Vuitton Star Trail ankle boots. Estimate: US $800-$1,200

A pair of black glazed calf leather Star Trail ankle boots by Louis Vuitton, offered in their original box and marked size 41, accompanied Diane Keaton to some of her most high-profile appearances over the past decade. She wore the chunky lace-up boots while accepting the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2017, styling them with a black turtleneck, belted silhouette, textured white jacket and her trademark wide-brimmed hat. Keaton later described the evening to The Hollywood Reporter as ‘the wedding [she] never had and the retirement party [she] never wanted’. During the ceremony, Al Pacino told his longtime collaborator: ‘You’re a great artist. I love you forever.’ The same pair reappeared at the premiere of Poms in Los Angeles in 2019, the Ralph Lauren show during New York Fashion Week in 2023, and numerous other engagements.

A Baron Hollywood’s Hat Maker black felt bowler hat with black ribbon. Estimate US$400-US$600

Few accessories are as closely associated with Diane Keaton as the black bowler hat. This example, by Baron Hats, was worn repeatedly throughout her life and career and belongs to a category of object that has become inseparable from her public image. The connection dates back to Annie Hall, where Keaton’s adoption of menswear-inspired tailoring and bowler hats helped establish one of cinema’s most enduring style signatures. In an interview with Vogue, Keaton said she owns around 40 hats, naming a plain black Baron bowler as her favourite: ‘I’ve had it for so long. It’s good – it’s dependable.’ Elsewhere, she described hats as ‘the final touch to a great outfit’. In her 2014 memoir, Let's Just Say It Wasn't Pretty, she wrote: ‘My hair is my hat. And my hat is my hair.’

A handwritten letter and inscribed sheet music for All I Have to Do Is Dream from Al Pacino. Estimate: US$300-$500

A handwritten note from Al Pacino and sheet music for ‘All I Have to Do Is Dream’, inscribed ‘To Di / Love AL’, sit among Diane Keaton’s personal papers. The accompanying letter reads: ‘Diane. Andy, me and Don went to a restaurant in Mondello. I will call you with the name of the joint. Sit tight. Be right. Don’t fight. Love Al, Your friend.’ Keaton and Pacino met while filming The Godfather and maintained an on-and-off romantic relationship into the 1980s. Keaton later described him as ‘the most entertaining man’ with ‘the most beautiful face’. Writing in Deadline following her death, Pacino said: ‘She lived without limits, and everything she touched carried her unmistakable energy,’ adding that she was ‘unstoppable, resilient, and above all, deeply human.’

Ed Ruscha signed book. Estimate: US$200-$300

Keaton’s sale includes several artist books by Ed Ruscha, among them a signed edition of Twentysix Gasoline Stations, first published in 1963. The publication comprises black-and-white photographs of petrol stations along the route between Los Angeles and Oklahoma City, with captions noting each location. The first stop was Bob’s Service in Los Angeles; the last, a Fina station in Groom, Texas. The lot also includes Nine Swimming Pools and Guacamole Airlines, alongside Sol LeWitt’s Modular Drawings. Keaton and Ruscha were romantically involved for a period, although little was made public about their relationship and both largely kept it out of view, unlike her more widely documented relationships with Al Pacino and Warren Beatty.

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In our monthly series, we highlight the products, places and experiences we’ve bookmarked – and that you won’t want to miss.

June is one of the busiest months in the culture and design calendar, with our editors firmly on the ground to keep you abreast of every development as it unfolds. From 10 June, our 3 Days of Design blog goes live with minute-by-minute dispatches from Scandinavia's most celebrated design festival. Back home, London’s art and architecture scenes are open wide for London Gallery Weekend and the London Festival of Architecture, offering an unmissable concentration of exhibitions and events.

Elsewhere on the summer roster: theatre, illustration, and – of course – football’s World Cup. Our US editor may be flying the flag stateside, but make no mistake: it’s coming home.

The showcase: 3 Days of Design, Copenhagen

Rosa Bertoli, global design director

Some of the team are off to Copenhagen next week for the 14th edition of 3 Days of Design (our live blog will be a real-time diary of everything we see in town). Throughout the city, Nordic and international brands and studios will be showcasing new pieces and design ideas, and I look forward to the conversations surrounding Scandinavian design and how it has evolved through the eyes of contemporary global creatives.

Having grown from a small four-brand event in 2013, the fair now promises countless highlights. I can't wait to discover the larger-than-life (seven-metre-tall) pavilion by Iittala and 'Tableau' with Hydro, celebrating Alvar Aalto's vase on its 90th anniversary, as well as returning and topical group exhibitions including 'Bread and Butter' (focusing on bathing culture from Japan to Denmark and beyond) and 'Værktøj' (exploring the use of tools within the design practice, in this case the sewing machine). Wallpaper's own Japan editor, Jens H Jensen, a Dane, is co-curating an exhibition with OEO Studio, titled ‘Japanmade Vol.1’, exploring Japanese design through a Danish lens – one of many Japan-focused exhibitions in Copenhagen during the fair.

The production: 'Les Liaisons Dangereuses', National Theatre

Anna Solomon, digital staff writer

I’ve booked tickets to the National Theatre to see Christopher Hampton’s Les Liaisons Dangereuses, a lavish new production directed by Marianne Elliott that revives Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’ scandalous tale of sex, power and manipulation. Set amid the opulent salons of pre-Revolutionary France, the story follows the Marquise de Merteuil (Lesley Manville) and the Vicomte de Valmont (Aidan Turner), two master manipulators who wield seduction as a weapon in a ruthless game of influence.

As a devotee of the period drama, I’m looking forward to seeing the 18th-century extravagance of Les Liaisons brought to life on the stage of the National Theatre’s brutalist edifice. I’m equally curious to see how Elliott’s production reinterprets the story for modern audiences. Its themes have resonated for centuries; the question is whether she can sustain that legacy.

The art event: London Gallery Weekend

Hannah Silver, art, culture, watches & jewellery editor

During the first weekend of June, more than 120 galleries open their doors across the city as part of London Gallery Weekend. As well as many exhibitions launching to coincide with the weekend, there is a free programme of talks, tours, events, performances and parties taking place across London, bringing together contemporary artists including George Rouy and Roni Horn with established figures such as Francis Picabia. I am particularly looking forward to Anne Imhof at Sprüth Magers – more on this to follow in our July issue, which goes on sale later this week. Check the full weekend schedule here.

The listening bar: Record Bar Moon Shine, Osaka

Sofia de la Cruz, travel editor

I've just returned from a two-week trip around Japan, where many evenings were spent in vinyl bars, lingering over glasses of umeshu with my partner and striking up conversations with the passionate owners behind these independent establishments. Our favourite was a tiny haunt called Record Bar Moon Shine, almost hidden on the fourth floor of a narrow building in Osaka. Its owner inherited a collection of 5,000 records from his father and has devoted much of his life and spare time to keeping the bar alive. Inside the space, bathed in the crimson glow of a giant pachinko parlour across the street and carrying the faint scent of cigarette smoke, we were introduced to a world of city pop – the glossy, exuberant soundtrack that came to define Japan in the 1980s. The only way to bring a small piece of that experience home was to leave with a stack of records under my arm. They have already become the soundtrack to my June.

The festival: London Festival of Architecture

Ellie Stathaki, architecture & environment director

June is a very architectural month here in London – the London Festival of Architecture 2026 launched on the first of the month, and I am excited to hear from Jayden Ali at his keynote lecture. Meanwhile, the programme, 400-entries strong, is sure to have something for everyone. Discussions, exhibitions and installations abound. Personally, I have a soft spot for activities that allow me to bring the family along at weekends (Lego Challenge, here we come). It gives me an excuse to keep the child in me happy, too. The Serpentine Pavilion 2026 will also be opening its doors to the public on 6 June, while further away, Spain's Concéntrico festival, which kicks off on 18 June, will keep those of us who can attend busy with its own interpretation of architecture and the city. See you on the other side...

The day out: Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration

Léa Teuscher, sub-editor

I’m looking forward to the opening of the Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration in Clerkenwell, London. I’ve walked past the brick walls of the New River Head building many times (it’s just next to Sadler's Wells Theatre in Angel), and always wondered what it looked like inside. From Friday, we will be able to see how the derelict waterworks engine house and coal stores have been transformed by Tim Ronalds Architects into the UK’s only space dedicated to the art of illustration. It’s a wonderful project, celebrating not only the genius of Blake’s dynamic and whimsical drawings, but also an often overlooked art form. The inaugural exhibitions focus on Blake’s theatrical works, queer comic-makers, and the kaleidoscopic illustration of Welsh-Sri Lankan illustrator Murugiah. I can’t wait to visit the free reference library and look for cockatoos in the boutique.

The sporting event: the World Cup

Anna Fixsen, US editor

My football career ended sometime circa 1999, when I accidentally gave a kid a concussion during a scrimmage. However, with the World Cup landing stateside beginning 11 June, I am ready to re-immerse myself in the sport – sans head injuries. Fortunately, New York’s mayor, Zohran Mamdani, is aiming to create a ‘World Cup that belongs to New Yorkers’, not only throwing free fan events across the five boroughs, but also reserving 1,000 affordable tickets to lucky locals for when the matches arrive at MetLife Stadium in a few weeks. I’ve thrown my name in the hat for the cheap tickets, but if Lady Luck isn’t on my side, you’ll catch me watching the games in Brooklyn Bridge Park or a sunny rooftop watering hole. #Goals – in more ways than one!

Fanciness is something that’s resonated with Jeremy Anderson since he was a young boy growing up in suburban Minneapolis in the 1980s. He remembers his mom gingerly removing cube-shaped crystals that hung off the family chandelier and, with characteristic Midwest practicality, placing them in the dishwasher for a cleaning. He remembers noticing the silky damask patterns on mattresses and yearning to play dress-up with dolls.

‘Boys don’t play with dolls,’ Anderson recalls of the prevailing attitudes of the time. Now, with a solo show of lighting, furniture, mirrors and vessels on view in New York with the prestigious London design dealers Gallery Fumi, ‘I am giving myself permission to tap into that energy in a way I really couldn’t,' he says.

The show, titled ‘Held In Light,’ is Anderson’s largest solo presentation to-date. He works primarily in ceramics, a medium he discovered while still in high school. After co-founding the renowned lighting studio Apparatus, Anderson returned to ceramics about six years ago, a career transition that’s allowed the W*400 designer to plumb even deeper creative impulses.

Anderson’s work takes familiar objects and furnishings and transforms them into something more otherworldly and whimsical. Rotund stoneware vessels are ornamented with blooming petals and fins that give them a friendly, creature-like sensibility. Ceramic chandeliers and lamps are ornamented with ceramic beads, a move that evokes traditional lighting while giving them a delightful anthropomorphic quality, like a swinging fringe haircut.

‘I am very inspired by classic forms and shapes. It’s about putting my creative voice on those shapes and making them feel more modern and weird,’ Anderson says.

Gallery Fumi’s founders took notice. For co-owner Sam Pratt, who grew up in Sierra Leone, it was the hand-made quality of Anderson’s work and their universal ability to stir up memories that gave it a particular resonance. ‘There’s an unusual sculptural thing [inherent to the work]. I also see something African about them,’ he says, adding ‘Just as important is Jeremy the person.’

For the ‘Held in Light’ show, Anderson has amped up the scale of his work with a selection of 21 pieces that include a dining table, cabinet and a daybed. Each features a bronze frame, cast to appear at once delicate and brawny, and embedded ceramic slabs painted in Anderson’s signature, meditative stripes.

One of the most eye-catching pieces is a new daybed that blends fantasy with a certain pomp. It features a French horsehair mattress covered in a silky Zak + Fox fabric (a gussied up version of a traditional mattress) and bolster cushions fashioned from a 19th-century homespun fabric.

The works are displayed as part of Gallery Fumi’s New York residency at Gallerie 56, an exhibition space in the podium of Herzog & de Meuron’s ‘Jenga’ tower at 56 Leonard Street. In a full circle moment, Anderson would often drive past the building when commuting to his studio in Brooklyn.

‘So much of what I make is tapping into memory and being able to play in a way I didn’t feel like I was able to when I was young,’ Anderson explains.

‘That’s why the making process and being hands-on is so important to me,’ he adds.’ That’s what it’s all about.’

'Held in Light' is on view at Gallery Fumi's New York residency at 56 Gallerie through 3 July, 2026.

With past mentors including Marc Jacobs, Paul Fortune, John and Christine Gachot, and Gabriel Hendifar, interior designer Casey Kenyon was exceptionally well placed when he launched his own studio in 2019. Drawing on the experience gained from these creative titans, the New York-based designer’s most recent project is a confident expression of his own style and sensibility – made possible by clients who were 'game, open and trusting,' Kenyon says.

This one-bed apartment in an Upper West Side co-op was designed for a couple – Ted, a screenwriter, and Josh, an agent – who split their time between Manhattan and the Hudson Valley. The seventh-floor apartment’s predominantly north-facing rooms are bathed in soft light throughout the day, though the relatively low ceilings required careful consideration of scale and proportion. Some of the larger pieces the couple had hoped to bring from their Upstate home – a substantial sofa, for example – simply proved too imposing. 'We taped it out on the wall, and I was like, this is never going to work,' recalls Kenyon, who instead focused on lower furniture to create the impression of greater ceiling height.

Several key pieces were custom designed out of necessity, owing to the city’s notoriously narrow hallways and limited elevator capacities – 'a proper New York challenge,' as the W*400 designer puts it.

The sofa had to be delivered in pieces, while the television cabinet was also assembled on site. Crafted in walnut, the cabinet features teal gloss doors that neatly fold into side pockets and is finished with vintage handles sourced from Kenyon’s ever-evolving collection. This, he explains, is one of his tricks for softening the feel of a new object. 'Vintage hardware takes away the newness in a way that’s special,' he says. 'A little bit of patina goes a long way.'

Additional bespoke furniture creates a dining nook opposite the kitchen, where a plaid Zak & Fox wallpaper and a mounted Picasso plate are designed to catch the eye of anyone seated on the banquette. 'You can sit there as one person with your laptop or to have takeaway, or as six people when entertaining,' Kenyon says.

Upholstered pieces throughout the apartment introduce a carefully calibrated range of hues selected so they feel 'complementary, but don't match,' the designer explains. 'I typically like complex colours, which can change and shift during the day. While the apartment is mostly off-white, the bedroom is a different shade to the living room because the light is different in each.'

The couple’s impressive art collection played a key role in bringing personality and richness to the interiors. Among their existing works, a grid of nine Andy Warhol Polaroids hangs in the dining room alongside a trio of black-and-white photographs by Diane Arbus. Although the collection is not intentionally queer-focused, Kenyon notes that several prominent queer-identifying artists appear throughout the home, including Hugh Steers, Peter Hujar and Nick Hoover.

Perhaps the most fortuitous acquisition, according to Kenyon, was the Genieve Figgis painting in the living room, which serendipitously echoed the colours of the custom burgundy rug. 'We were constantly looking for something to go above the sofa, even after the room was done, and then the Figgis just came to be, and it was perfect,' he says.

Another fun discovery rests atop a tall Art Deco plinth in the bedroom. Kenyon came across this small bronze figurative sculpture at a Paris flea market and, after an enthusiastic early-morning text exchange with his clients, promptly purchased it – before discreetly sneaking it home in his suitcase. 'If you were looking for it on the internet, you would never find it,' the designer says.

Overall, Kenyon sought to create a dialogue between harder lines and materials and softer, more 'frouffy' embellishments, allowing these relationships to slowly reveal themselves as the eye moves through the apartment. A floral vase placed beside a black steel side table, or the glass-topped Guy Lefevre coffee table positioned opposite a crewel, brush-fringed cloth, are among examples.

'I think we did a good job here of playing with softness and rigidity,' Kenyon says. 'Those sorts of things are lovely and important, and feel real.'

'Institutional restaurants are not generally considered places that are very sensory, romantic and interesting. They tend to be a very intentional sidebar to what is the main focus, which is academic and cultural excellence,' observes Robin Alesch who, with her husband Stephen, co-founded the New York design studio Roman and Williams.

The duo recently partnered with Sotheby’s on Marcel, a new continental restaurant in the auction house’s new-ish home in the iconic Breuer building on Madison Avenue. 'The fact that it was Sotheby’s, and not a museum, gave us the freedom to create an eco-system where all of that can happen in one place,' Robin adds.

It also meant that the duo was immersed not only in the design of the space, but in creating the menu, the branding and even the rotating selection of art on the walls and design objects in vitrines. (Robin recounts a moment when she wished there were a Chagall to hang in the private dining room, only to be told, 'We have one!')

This is not the Alesch’s first go with either Sotheby’s or the restaurant business. Two years ago they designed an installation of works by the Nabis that were offered in Sotheby’s New York sales. And it’s been almost a decade since they debuted both their restaurant, La Mercerie, and their shop, Roman and Williams Guild, in the same SoHo space.

The 'restaurant-in-a-shop' idea appealed to Sotheby’s top brass. 'I think they really appreciated the intersection between art and objects in the Guild and about a space doing more than one thing,' Robin notes.

But Marcel presented an entirely different challenge: how to bring warmth, movement and intimacy into one of New York’s most imposing brutalist interiors without diminishing its force. 'The building is this big, powerful being, but we’re not afraid of it,' says Stephen. 'We love this beast. We want to dance with it.'

Wallpaper* dines at Marcel

The Mood: Brutalism gets a softer side

The dance they chose was less go-go and more stylized social dancing of the mid 1960s, channeling the tension between weight and lightness that defines Breuer’s work, while simultaneously 'standing up to Breuer and bringing something new,' Robin adds.

The strategy was a variation of divide and conquer, as one portion of the restaurant is landmarked, and the other is not. A unified narrative was achieved through materials; Robin points out that Breuer used bronze, walnut and granite, so the team' 'really lucked out,' (and added silver and glass to the mix). Walnut walls and ceilings envelop guests in the non-landmarked portion of Marcel, which includes the bar, set with vintage Bauhaus stools and vintage Breuer lamps, and the kitchen.

Early in the design process, the designers made a fortuitous discovery: Breuer had designed custom hardware for a model house he built in MoMA’s sculpture garden in 1949, but it had never been put into production. Turns out that E.R. Butler (a specialist in architectural hardware) had the original drawings in its archive, made the pieces for the restaurant and also available on their site).

The food: Madison Avenue, à la française

Marie-Aude Rose, who also oversees the menu at La Mercerie, is chef-partner at Marcel; she, along with executive chef Juan Moncalvo, created a menu descried as 'continental with a French emphasis.' Which translates to dishes including escargots and côte de boeuf but also a chicken paprikash (rumoured to be based on Breuer’s mother’s recipe) and a 'Que voulez-vouz' section where one can choose their cut of steak, or preferred fish, and have it prepared to their liking. Best yet: diners can select an accompanying wine from Sotheby’s own cellar (although those who order a martini will find it served in a weighty brutalist coupe of sorts). Marcel is also home to La Mercerie Patisserie, a bakery and café open all day and offering coffees, pastry, tarts and other treats, to stay or take away.

Retail plays a discrete but significant role in Marcel. Much of the art on the walls is for sale, as are the items displayed in vitrines. If diners fancy the chair they are sitting on, their brutalist martini glass, or one of the table lamps, they’re all part of the Marcel collection available through Roman and Williams (said collection also includes a bar cart, credenzas, a large selection of glassware and lighting).

Truth be told, this may be the easiest way to 'experience' Marcel as the restaurant is booked weeks in advance. Part of that is undoubtedly due to the highly competitive nature of New Yorkers who absolutely must get to the buzziest new place before their friends. But it’s also because Marcel is very of its environs (it can be viewed from the street, and is especially cinematic at night) and feels like it has always been there.

'The building hasn’t had a powerful [restaurant] inhabitant, a committed inhabitant, in a long time,' Robin notes, adding 'We really wanted to make something committed.'

Marcel is located at Marcel 945 Madison Ave New York, NY 10021. Book here

Alexandre de Betak launched his modular sofa, ‘Le Takbe’, during NYC x Design, in collaboration with Paris gallery Pierre Augustin Rose's New York space in SoHo.

Over the past three decades, under the banner of his Paris-based creative agency Bureau Betak, de Betak built a global reputation for masterminding some of fashion’s most spectacular shows – from Dior’s delphinium-covered hill in the Louvre’s courtyard and the ethereal Berluti show, where shoes floated through the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, lifted by oversized white balloons, to Saint Laurent’s glittering spectacles beneath the Eiffel Tower. After founding the company in 1990, he produced more than 1,500 runway shows, installations and events that blurred the boundaries between fashion, architecture and art.

In 2023, de Betak opted to take a step back from the company to concentrate on his personal dreams as a designer and artist, creating ‘spaces of radical stillness where the viewer is not spectator but subject’. Working out of a mews studio in London’s Marylebone, his obsession with the tension between ancient and contemporary, low-tech and high-tech, remains constant. Recent works include a large-scale light installation coinciding with Frieze London 2025, and Chashitsu Hikari Schürli, a site-specific light sculpture unveiled during Gstaad Art Week in February 2026.

Alexandre De Betak’s sofa for Pierre Augustin Rose

The origins of the 'Le Takbe' modular sofa are deeply personal for de Betak, who first designed it for his own homes around the world, conceiving it for an informal way of living – for lounging, gathering, playing, and meditating, without hierarchy or prescription.

It is formed of a low platform, on which cushions can be freely arranged and rearranged, adapting to the rhythms of daily life. This first edition with Pierre Augustin Rose introduces removable backrests, offering a more structured seating configuration while preserving the openness of the original. The design is available in two sizes – a conventional rectangular sofa or a more expansive square shape – and two fabrications, either wool or linen, and it can be configured as a daybed, sofa, or something in between; a small landscape within a room, shaped by whoever inhabits it.

Founded by Pierre Bénard and Augustin Deleuze, who were later joined by Nina Rose, Pierre Augustin Rose draws from the legacy of 20th-century masters while remaining resolutely anchored in the present. Their work reflects a refined balance between memory and invention, with form, proportion and materiality approached with precision and restraint. Rooted in a passion for singular environments, Pierre Augustin Rose creates collections that are both bold and nuanced, where furniture becomes a vehicle for atmosphere as much as function. At its core lies a clear ambition: to project a distinctly French sensibility into a contemporary, international context.

pierreaugustinrose.com

As a kid growing up in the Kensington neighbourhood of Philadelphia, Roberto Lugo didn’t have access to art classes in school. What he did have, though, was a drive to create, an ambition he expressed by tagging abandoned buildings throughout Philly. Later, he discovered clay and began merging his Puerto Rican heritage and love of hip-hop culture with this millennia-old medium by creating graffiti-covered classical pots and urns.

Fast forward two decades and you can find the W*400 artist’s work in collections ranging from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, to the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC. Today, you can also find his work out in the open, thanks to a special public art commission from Madison Square Park in New York. The installation, called ‘Alfarero del Barrio (Village Potter)’ sees two monumental sculptures placed in the verdant urban respite – a 20-foot-tall urn and a 15-foot-tall fire hydrant.

The urn is modeled on an antique Herend design, first designed for Queen Victoria in the 19th-century. But in lieu of butterflies and flowers, Lugo has decorated it with symbols and portraits honouring his Puerto Rican heritage. Most notable are the eight luminaries depicted on the sides of the urn, from music superstar Bad Bunny to US Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor to Lugo’s own parents. Exuberant, graffiti-inspired motifs wrap the sculpture from base to finial, including images of hibiscus blooms, vines, chickens, dominoes and billowing Puerto Rican flags.

For Lugo, it was important to present representations of his community on a vessel historically reserved for the privileged. ‘We are an incredibly resourceful people,’ Lugo says of Puerto Ricans. ‘We come from a history of our ancestors being enslaved, of colonisation, of all these social issues that created a history of poverty. For me this installation is a celebration of us overcoming.’

At the eastern edge of the park is a towering fire hydrant, painted in a bright orange-red and tagged with graffiti. For Lugo, the sculpture has special significance – as a kid, his father would crack open the neighbourhood fire hydrant so kids could play and cool off during a sweltering summer day. But for him, the symbol holds deeper meaning, a metaphor for a wider state of emergency that marginalised communities may find themselves in – especially as the US celebrates its 250th anniversary.

It all comes back to expressing the joys and struggles of the Puerto Rican experience – a narrative that is distinctly American. ‘The artwork that I'm most attracted to as a person is something that tells a story,’ Lugo reflects. ‘A professor of mine has this old adage: The more personal a story is, the more universal it becomes.’

‘Alfarero del Barrio (Village Potter)’ is on view through 6 December 2026 in Madison Square Park

Amid a White House pressure campaign to quell diversity, equity and inclusion programmes, and restore ‘truth and sanity’ to US history, the Smithsonian Institution is quietly clapping back.

Last week, the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. restored impeachment language to a portrait of President Donald J. Trump. And Monday evening in New York, the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum hosted a jubilant gala to celebrate the 2026 National Design Award recipients.

The honourees, chosen in 10 different categories by an independent jury, marked one of the most diverse and politically-engaged talent pools in recent memory, a roster that includes Thought Matter, a branding agency who’s redesigned the US Constitution; Laura Kurgan, a digital designer whose data visualisations have shed light on topics including mass incarceration; and Estudio Teddy Cruz + Fonna Forman, whose work strikes alliances across the US-Mexico border.

‘[The winners] understand, as you all do, if you're in this room, that design is everywhere, and that it is, in fact, not neutral at all,’ said Cooper Hewitt director Maria Nicanor in a speech. ‘All of them are truth seekers, beauty makers, connectors.’

The National Design Awards grew out of the White House Millennium Council, an inter-governmental coalition established by the Clinton administration to rise to the challenges of the 21st-century. Now in its 26th edition, the prize is recognised as the most prestigious design accolade in the nation.

High-profile attendees included Martha Stewart, Thom Browne, Maya Lin, Jenna Lyons and Tory Burch, who all received special recognition at the awards banquet. Also in attendance was Joe Gebbia, a co-founder of AirBNB and America’s first Chief Design Officer, a title granted by President Trump in 2025.

In their 60-second acceptance speeches, award winners expressed gratitude while acknowledging the challenges facing the design community and the country – from artificial intelligence to climate change.

Some took subtle aim at recent White House actions. Kurgan, who took home the award for digital design and is a professor at Columbia University, seemingly referenced that institution’s $200 million settlement with the federal government last summer: ‘[Academia] is undergoing serious assault and transformations,’ she said. Architect Teddy Cruz, a co-winner of the award for climate action, devoted his firm’s award to ‘every single beautiful member of the immigrant communities we work with every day.’

Still, Gebbia, who leads America’s National Design Studio, touted the importance of America’s design sector and the need for innovation. The honourees, he told Wallpaper* following an address, represent ‘the best of our nation.’

And indeed, the remainder of the evening, set in the grand hall of the National Museum of the American Indian, was a celebratory one. The night culminated with a special dessert performance from artist Laila Gohar, complete with a marching band and cakes in the shape of objects from the Cooper Hewitt’s permanent collection.

‘It makes me hopeful that we have good [honourees] who are good designers,’ Nicanor told Wallpaper* as waiters sliced into cakes shaped like Michael Graves teapots. ‘Some of them are very young, some of them have long trajectories, so there's a continuity there. I don't see that breaking.’

The 2026 National Design Award Winners

• Robert Earl Paige (Design Visionary)
• Estudio Teddy Cruz + Fonna Forman (Climate Action)
• Mattaforma (Emerging Designer)
• Frida Escobedo Studio (Architecture)
• Thought Matter (Communication Design)
• Laura Kurgan (Digital Design)
• Josh Tafoya (Fashion Design)
• Charlap Hyman & Herrero (Interior Design)
• Ten Eyck Landscape Architects (Landscape Architecture)
• Berea College Student Craft (Product Design)