For Victoria Beckham, creating a beauty line has never been just about producing some of the industry’s most acclaimed cosmetics, but about giving a platform to beauty in various forms.

This mission is clearly realised in the brand’s consistent support of artists, showcasing their talent and partnering on collaborations that draw inspiration from Victoria Beckham Beauty products. Most recently, the brand celebrated the launch of its newest product, the Blush Stylus, by teaming up with the sculptor and ceramic artist Phoebe Collings-James to create a one-of-a-kind artwork inspired by the intuitive nature of the product. Over four interlocking ceramic panels, Collings-James richly textured surfaces covered in sweeping circles and etched markings that document the movement of her hand. In this way, the artwork is a clever artistic expression of the Blush Stylus – a thin pen-like stick with a rounded bullet tip designed to easily and noticeably create a flush of colour on the face.

‘Following Phoebe's work over the past year has been a true source of inspiration,’ says Victoria Beckham in an exclusive statement to Wallpaper*. ‘Clay as a material resonated so deeply with Blush Stylus, with the shades taking their names from painting techniques. There's something so intimate about the way she works: the way her hand remains visible on the surface, the way the material remembers pressure, gesture and transformation. That felt completely aligned with what Blush Stylus is about – playful gestures and emotional traces, coming together through texture, colour and form. It feels like a conversation.’

The sentiment is echoed by Collings-James themselves. ‘That colour tonality of Blush Stylus – that range from deep reds through to pinks – was where it began for me, they say. ‘It connected directly to the iron-rich red clay I work with, and to the tin-pink glazes I developed especially for this project. The free, swooping gesture of the Blush Stylus also found its way in, becoming a direct influence on the mark-making across the clay's surface.’

For Beckham, seeing the final product confirmed why she has aligned her brand with artists and makers from the very beginning. ‘Art has always been close to my heart, in so many shapes and forms,’ she says. ‘Beauty is about identity and self-expression – and I find that absolutely central to Phoebe's practice. The way her work balances softness alongside fractured textures, fluidity next to exposed clay, embracing unpredictability as part of the final composition. Working with Phoebe allowed us to bring that philosophy to life in a way that goes far beyond a product. It became something greater.’

All change! So could be the motto of the S/S 2026 season, which heralded the arrival of 15 new creative directors at fashion’s major houses – from Dior to Chanel.

It led to a sweeping feeling of freshness and renewal that would define the season, one that Wallpaper* captures in a new series of images by photographer Nicole Maria Winkler and Wallpaper* fashion & creative director Jason Hughes.

S/S 2026’s standount looks in the fitting room

Originally featured in our March 2026 Style Issue, they capture model Valerija Kelava dressing up in a series of S/S 2026’s standout looks – whether the rising Belgian design Julie Kegels’ collaged layers (she said she wanted the collection to feel like it had a life of its own) or a sweeping white gown from Jonathan Anderson’s first Dior collection, delicately edged with flowers.

The setting is a surreal imagining of a fitting room by set designer Kim Harding, Winkler’s longtime collaborator. Within it, we explore the transformative power of a new season of looks. Keep scrolling to shop the story.

Model: Valerija Kelava at Oui Management. Casting: Esther Boiteux at EB Agency. Hair: Moe Mukai using Oribe. Make-up: Sunao Takahashi at Saint Luke using Byredo. Set design: Kim Harding Studio. Digi tech: Anna-Sophia John. Photography assistants: Josh Rea, Elliot Humbles. Set design assistant: Austeja Gokaite. Fashion assistant: Lucy Proctor. Production assistant: Danielle Quigley.

A version of this story appears in the March 2026 Style Issue of Wallpaper*, available on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News + now. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

Shop the story

No matter who you are, every day of your life contains a multitude of tasks to be undertaken. The mark of a well-designed object is when it makes those tasks more pleasurable – sitting down to work, for instance, is easier with an elegant, ergonomic desk chair; bracing the cold weather is more pleasant when you can do it in a cocooning overcoat. The following beauty products have been selected as winners because they each have their own way of transforming one aspect of daily life into a simple, effective routine that you actually look forward to.

The Ziip Halo is a sleek, handheld device that offers the transformative effects of a high-end salon facial in the comfort of your home. Designed to be an all-in-one skincare solution, the Halo uses gentle microcurrents that promise to firm skin, diminish wrinkles, boost collagen, reduce acne and even out skin tone (such claims have been backed by clinical studies). It can be linked to an app with video tutorials on how to address concerns like dullness or breakouts with a personalised programme of electrical currents sent to the device via your phone. Each pre-programmed facial takes only a few minutes and is so easy to use, it can be done while having your morning coffee. The impact on your skin is instantly noticeable.

The same is true of Chanel’s Le Lift under-eye patches, which are formulated with hyaluronic acid and the brand’s signature eye complex to reduce dark circles and puffiness, while also reducing the appearance of discolouration and wrinkles with prolonged use. Playfully emblazoned with the Chanel logo, the patches are designed to be left on for five minutes a day and, once removed, excess product can be rubbed into the surrounding area to create an ideal base for make-up application.

When it comes to make-up, few recent launches have been more impressive than Hermès Beauty’s Plein Air foundation, which creative director Gregoris Pyrpylis began developing when he joined the house four years ago. Its purpose, says Pyrpylis, is ‘not to cover or mask the skin, but to care for it’. To that end, the foundation is formulated with an 82 per cent skincare base that is designed to hydrate, nourish and plump the appearance of skin with continual use. It can be paired with the line’s new primer and applied with tools inspired by the traditional artist’s palette and brush. ‘We are a house of craftsmanship, and I understand how important tools are in any discipline, including make-up,’ says Pyrpylis. ‘We all have busy lives and often feel pressed for time, but with this collection, I wanted to create a ritual that asks you to take a moment – whether it’s five, ten or 15 minutes is up to you – and elevate it into an act of self-care.’

The same attention to craftsmanship can be seen in Victoria Beckham’s line of make-up brushes, all of which are inspired by calligraphy tools and feature synthetic bristles specially developed for exceptional pick-up and easy application of everything from foundation and eyeshadow to lipstick and eyeliner. ‘I’m incredibly particular about design, and everything I create has a purpose,’ Beckham told Wallpaper* after the brush collection’s launch last year. ‘Nothing is chosen at random; there’s always intention behind every element.’

The same is true of Loewe’s recently launched Crafted Collection, a line of three perfumes that each take a commonly used note in perfumery – oud, iris and vanilla – and transforms them into idiosyncratic new scents. Roasted Vanilla, for instance, has a warm, creamy heart that is complicated by the spiciness of pink pepper and the alcoholic sweetness of cognac, while Bittersweet Oud brightens its familiar animalistic scent with a touch of bitter orange and warming sandalwood. Iris Root, the lightest of the fragrances, has a powdery, creamy quality made even more intriguing with the addition of herbaceous angelica seed and citrusy timut pepper. All three fragrances are housed in weighty, handblown glass vessels with a tactile granite cap – on a shelf or counter, they look like small sculptures, a testament to Loewe’s continuing dedication to transforming even the simplest objects into a showcase for exceptional craft.

Discover all the Wallpaper* Design Awards 2026 winners in the February issue of Wallpaper*, available in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News + from 8 January 2025. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

Every day of the past year seemed to bring a new beauty launch, making it hard to tell exactly which debuts were worth paying attention to, and which were simply more noise.

Thankfully, after a year of trying, experimenting and then trying again, I’ve narrowed down 25 of the standout beauty launches of the year, chosen for a combination of innovative formulations, pleasing packaging, and the offering up of something new.

From contouring palettes to workout apps, Japanese make-up brushes and fragrance designed for your clothes, we're certain there’s something here for everyone. And, with the festive season looming, it doubles as a handy gift guide – whether indulging yourself or a loved one.

Make-up

Hair and body care

Perfume

Skincare

Wellness

Cream blush sticks are invaluable tools in your beauty arsenal for the summer months, striking the perfect balance between a lightweight, ethereal consistency and high-impact payoff.

Buildable and incredibly low-stakes when it comes to errors in application, the cream blush stick is also infinitely versatile: it can be dabbed onto eyelids, lips and swept across the temples, as well as the apples of the cheeks and bridge of the nose in keeping with the natural skin flush that warmer weather provides.

From dewy to matte finishes, Wallpaper* selects five of the best formulas, including Merit’s aptly-named Flush Balm, Chanel’s Les Beiges Blush Stick and Nars’ cult classic The Multiple.

Five of the best cream blush sticks, from Merit to Chanel

‘Perfect’ is an overused adjective. But when it comes to Victoria Beckham’s namesake beauty line, it’s a description that sincerely fits. From the moment Victoria Beckham Beauty debuted over London Fashion Week S/S 2020 with an edit of eye products inspired by its founder’s signature smokey lids, it was clear that the pop-star turned fashion designer had struck a considered balance between form and function – no easy feat in the world of make-up, at least.

The first collection included The Eye Wardrobe quad, a palette that features shadows in an array of finishes. Textured like silk, they also provide a surprising whack of buildable and intensely pigmented colour. In addition, there was the Satin Kajal Liner, which now boasts a cult status thanks to its ability to glide over the skin like butter, yet cling onto a make-up look for hours on end, thanks to a waterproof formulation.

This month, the brand celebrates one of its first Satin Kajal Liners – a matte burgundy kohl named Bordeaux – with an expanded collection of products built around this colour spectrum. Joining the eyeliner is a new Eye Wardrobe palette and Future Lash mascara, which was first used by Lucia Pica to create the runway beauty for Victoria Beckham’s A/W 2025 show.

In addition, Victoria Beckham Beauty marks a milestone moment, unveiling its first-ever collection of make-up tools: The Brush Set. Here, Beckham gives Wallpaper* a glimpse into the process of its making. (Her method is just as meticulous as you might expect).

How Victoria Beckham designed the perfect collection of make-up brushes

Wallpaper*: When and why did you first have the idea to create The Brush Set for Victoria Beckham Beauty?

Victoria Beckham: I’ve been obsessed with brushes for longer than I can remember. When it comes to make-up, years of working with top industry professionals have given me a clear vision of what I want, what’s missing and what truly works. Just as I’ve collected make-up over the years, I’ve also collected make-up brushes.

With this set of brushes, I’ve considered every single detail. I’m deeply focused on the ‘why’ behind everything and strive for best-in-class quality before I share anything. I’ve spent a great deal of time analysing this brush collection: what I wanted and what I couldn’t find [elsewhere]. Each one has really earned its right to be there.

W*: The Brush Collection draws inspiration from calligraphy pens and cutlery. What was your research process here?

VB: Precision is extremely important to me. I was especially drawn to the fine, controlled lines of calligraphy pens and their ability to create both delicate and bold strokes with absolute accuracy. That same balance of artistry and function was key when designing these brushes.

Looking at my past work, like the Contour Stylus, I see how that same level of precision carries through. The compact size of the Stylus allows for detailed application, almost like sketching on the face. My research process was about studying the elegance and functionality of both calligraphy tools and cutlery, focusing on their refined craftsmanship, the way they feel in hand and how they elevate the experience of using them.

W*: What were the essential design elements that you wanted the brushes to include in terms of functionality?

VB: I wanted nothing to be overcomplicated. I was meticulous in each brush being the perfect shape, whether it’s the right angle to create the perfect smoky eye or achieve seamless application. For the shape of the brush handle, I thought about when I’m using a particular brush. How do I hold it in my hand? And so, consequently, what does the shape need to be?

When I’m using the double-ended 22. Define & Line Brush, for example, I use the bushy end to build the arch in the eye, then the flatter side to refine and shape. I love that balance of precision and ease; it just makes the whole process feel intuitive.

W*: The handles are crafted from walnut timber. Why did you settle on this particular type of wood?

VB: The materials that we use are true to my brand DNA. Walnut timber felt like the perfect choice; the wood is beautiful, and I love the weight it gives the brushes. It also gives them a real point of difference. I’m always influenced by my surroundings, including my home and my interiors. I’m incredibly particular about design, and everything I create has a purpose. Nothing is chosen at random; there’s always intention behind every element.

The Brush Set and The Bordeaux Collection by Victoria Beckham Beauty are available now.

victoriabeckhambeauty.com

The best beauty products of the month, according to Wallpaper*, includes eight new launches by a roster of brands. Below, find Prada's latest mascara, used by lead make-up artist Lynsey Alexander in the runway look for the house’s A/W 2025 show on Wednesday this week (26 February 2025).

Plus, Westman Atelier’s bronzing drops, formulated by Gucci Westman. The American make-up artist has recently worked with Anthony Vaccarello and David Sims on Saint Laurent’s S/S 2025 campaign starring Michelle Pfeiffer, in addition to Nicole Kidman – who plays Romy in Halina Reijn’s Babygirl – on the actor’s red carpet appearances during this year’s awards season.

The best beauty products of the month, according to Wallpaper*

As seen in the March 2025 Style Issue of Wallpaper* (on newsstands now), we explore S/S 2025’s defining trends – from illusory trompe l’oeil to transparent layers and gravity-defying spiralling silhouettes – through 12 arresting looks and accessories, for men and women.

Trompe l’oeil (top left)

‘Truth and pretence, the real and the unreal,’ said co-creative directors Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons of their S/S 2025 menswear collection, which was filled with trompe l’oeil illusions – a response, no doubt, to our disorienting post-truth era, where nothing is quite what it seems. Their womenswear collection followed a similar track: like this coat, its surface printed to give the effect of faux fur.

Cut-outs (top right)

Bold acts of construction have long defined Florentine house Ferragamo, whether the vertiginous ‘Rainbow’ wedge heel – created for Judy Garland in 1938 – or the sculpted surface of the ‘Wanda’ bag. Current creative director Maximilian Davis picked up the mantle for S/S 2025, using the house’s atelier to extraordinary effect with leather mesh jackets and skirts cut to the shape of Ferragamo’s historic ‘Gancini’ motif.

Reimagined plaid

Plaid made something of a return this season, with designers evoking the humble material to suggest a mood of teenage rebellion – a nod to plaid’s longtime synonymy with grunge and punk. At Acne Studios there were enormous plaid bows on skirts (‘the familiar, twisted,’ said creative director Jonny Johansson); nipped-waist checked shirts were infused with a mood of refinement at Bottega Veneta; while at Loewe, Jonathan Anderson placed floating layers of plaid over baggy chino-style pants – part of the designer’s ongoing interrogation of wardrobe archetypes.

Hybrid accessories

The mashed-up accessory – like this futuristic sneaker-cum-penny loafer by Fendi – was a throughline of the season, with designers proposing strange and surreal hybrids that appeared as one thing but were actually another. They seem fit for our online era: the effect is reminiscent of the kind of dizzying juxtapositions you find when whizzing through a social-media stream at speed.

Spiralling silhouettes

The spiralling staircase of New York’s Guggenheim Museum inspired the construction of Pieter Mulier’s latest Alaïa collection, where dresses looped around the body to gravity-defying effect. In a shift from Paris to New York, Mulier presented the collection at the Frank Lloyd-Wright-designed landmark, echoing a similar transatlantic trip Azzedine Alaïa took in 1985, showing at the city’s Palladium nightclub.

Puzzle-piece construction

Nicolas Ghesquière’s latest womenswear show for Louis Vuitton took place on a raised runway constructed from a puzzle-like collection of the house’s signature trunks in an array of finishes and hues. Such playful amalgamations continued in the collection itself, which featured a series of sandals constructed from chunky, bolted-down straps of leather, some adorned with coins and crystals.

Blown-up tailoring

‘The joy of looking, discovering and dressing,’ said Matthieu Blazy of what would be his final collection for Bottega Veneta (he was named artistic director of Chanel last December), hoping to evoke a sense of childhood wonder. Cue animal motifs, colourful tasselled wigs and blown-up silhouettes, as if a child was playing dress up in their parent’s closet. ‘We need joy. We need this moment for ourselves, and continue to play.’

Shifted waistlines

Recent seasons have seen the American designer Tory Burch – once the poster girl for all-American preppiness – take a more experimental approach with freewheeling collections rooted in fabric and form. For S/S25, clever construction sees knee-length skirts hover away from the waist for an unexpected silhouette – the type of twisted classic that has now become Burch’s forte.

Brown

If brown has been something of an overlooked shade on the runway, in recent seasons designers have begun to embrace the hue for its suggestion of nostalgic sartorial elegance – particularly its richest shades of chocolate and chestnut. Like this trench coat by Paul Smith, part of the designer’s reminiscence on Soho’s Italian coffee bars of the 1960s and their famous patrons, from Lucian Freud to Francis Bacon.

Transparency

‘The paradox of lightness through craftsmanship,’ said Nadège Vanhée of her latest outing for Hermès, presented amid a set constructed from raw artist’s canvases. Impossibly lightweight layers of sheer fabric suggested the initial brushstrokes of a painting, while also proposing a mood of feminine sensuality, long a hallmark of Vanhée’s collections for the Parisian house.

Open arms

Jonathan Anderson described his latest menswear outing for his eponymous London-based label as ‘irrational clothing’, a nod to the surreal blown-up silhouettes, supersized knits and balloon-like protrusions of fabric. Though, as is his knack, the strangeness proved seductive, like a series of oversized gilets that proposed arms-out dressing as the mode du jour.

Deconstruction

The ritual of dressing, of putting on your clothes in the morning and removing them at night, was the inspiration behind Victoria Beckham’s S/S25 collection. ‘Observing the physical relationship between skin and garment,’ led the British designer to pieces turned inside out or deconstructed – like a series of sliced-away tailoring, as if still in the process of creation.

Models: Loka Lindaregard at Models 1, Reuben Larkin at Linden Staub. Casting: Ikki Casting at WSM. Hair: Mayuko Nakae using Oribe. Make-up: Faye Bluff at Of Substance Agency using Ilapothecary. Manicure: Sabina Uzunovic at Snow Creatives using Nailberry. Photography assistants: Guillaume Mercier, Julie Robinson. Fashion assistant: Lucy Proctor. Production assistant: Archie Thomson.

A version of this article appears in the March 2025 issue of Wallpaper*, available in print on international newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today.

As usual, our biannual Wallpaper* Style Issue reflects the changing fashion seasons. Rather less usually, this March 2025 edition arrives at a moment of relative upheaval within the industry, with close to a dozen creative directors on manoeuvres. Given that this list includes the likes of Sarah Burton, Matthieu Blazy and Haider Ackermann, it’s fair to say that something more involving than the industry-standard ‘musical chairs’ is underway.

Meanwhile, something akin to fashion’s tectonic plates is in motion, ushering in a more liberated, less prescriptive view of what a collection can be. Fashion features editor Jack Moss first identified the shift at Prada, where, he writes, co-creative directors Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons chose to operate ‘more like an open-ended invitation: who do you want to be today? “Infinite options proffer infinite opportunities,” said the house. These options comprised 49 entirely different looks to choose from; a collage of elements with barely a garment or idea repeated.’

This disavowal of the traditional ‘convening power’ of a collection, unless defined by its very disparity, inspired Jack and fashion & creative director Jason Hughes to explore further examples of this new, more eclectic mood. They found it in the work of Satoshi Kondo at Issey Miyake, Francesco Risso at Marni – whose S/S 2025 collection once again celebrated the house’s individuality – and Rei Kawakubo’s characteristic perfume provocations at Comme des Garçons.

Elsewhere, we conjure with the spirit of self-expression that resides in the work of fashion designer-turned-jeweller Gabrielle Greiss; Eva Gödel, whose model agency Tomorrow Is Another Day is changing the mores of the runway; and the founders of Furu, the project management agency that is turning to architecture in the stark surroundings of the Swedish island of Gotland. Going your own way never felt less fanciful, more freeing, so now.

Bill Prince
Editor-in-Chief

The March 2025 issue of Wallpaper* is available in print on newsstands from 6 February 2025, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

Victoria Beckham has long been a fan of contemporary art, steadily growing her collection with husband David over the years to encompass works by Yayoi Kusama, Nan Goldin, Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin and Yoshitomo Nara, amongst others.

Now, Beckham is dipping her toe into the art world again, collaborating with Sotheby’s for the second time since their 2018 partnership, which centred around Old Masters’ portraits. This time, modern works are the focus, with Beckham choosing ten artworks for an exhibition at her Dover Street boutique, before they are offered across Sotheby’s upcoming auctions.

‘Art has always been a source of inspiration over the years,’ says Beckham. ‘I’ve so enjoyed learning and educating myself. It has the power to spark ideas, evoke emotion – and in the case of contemporary art in particular – it speaks to the world around us. For David and me, collecting is about more than just investing or acquiring beautiful objects. It’s about finding pieces that bring us real joy. The more I delve into art history and progress on my journey as a collector, the more captivated I am by it.’

Ten works – by Yoshitomo Nara, George Condo, Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Joan Mitchell, Gerhard Richter, Yves Klein and Richard Prince – make up Beckham’s curation, which champions bold colours and generous proportions. After her first art purchase, a Julian Schnabel from his series Sonanbul (she became enamoured with the artist upon spotting his work at Elton John’s home in Nice), Beckham has continued to build an emotional connection with artworks.

In Nara’s vast Cosmic Eyes (in the Milky lane), it is the vulnerability she is drawn to. ‘So much of this painting’s power is in its gaze. It reminds us that things are never as simple as they look. There’s a childlike innocence mixed with a real edge and an eeriness. This is one of the things I Iove so much about Nara. His images seem straightforward, but as you start to move closer, you realise they have so much more to say. Despite the sophistication of the muted colour palette, he never loses that sense of playfulness, which is something I always try to weave into my collections.’

It joins Richard Prince’s Untitled, two works by Basquiat, two by Haring, Mitchell’s Pastel and George Condo’s double portrait, Artist and Muse. Of the latter, Beckham says: ‘This piece in particular is thought to be of Picasso and one of his muses, Sylvette, which is such a beautiful and layered interpretation given that Picasso was Condo’s own source of inspiration. I love the contrast and the energy of these colours. On paper, they sound completely wrong but when you see them together, they work in perfect harmony.’

Colour, too, is key for her in Richter’s works, while the monochrome of Yves Klein’s International Klein Blue is a particular favourite. ‘How could you not be seduced by that saturated blue pigment? It’s without doubt one of the most iconic colours of the 20th century and has inspired countless other artists and designers. I think this is the epitome of what every creative strives for – an instantly recognisable visual signature.’

The works go on public view at the Victoria Beckham store in Dover Street, London, from 6-10 February 2025, before they are offered across Sotheby’s upcoming contemporary auctions in New York and London or sold privately

sothebys.com

Last June, British designer Craig Green opened up his London studio to show his latest collection after a two-year absence from the runway. He admitted that such an intimate show was scary – ‘It’s like someone painting a runway through your house,’ he said – but it also felt liberating. Here was the site of Green’s fashion experiments, a creative lab of endless enquiries into fabric and material; all that intricately moulded leather, the glimmering candy wrapper-like fabrics, or the various constructions designed to hang off the body like contemporary sculpture. In the past decade, these have evoked sails and lilos, medical equipment and horse-riding stirrups, even contorted dummies used for martial arts practice.

For this show, his S/S 2025 offering, Green felt like a designer in full flight, riffing on archetypal menswear garments in imaginative style: a series of ‘biker jackets’ were made in collaboration with Danish leather brand Ecco and constructed in colourful jigsaw puzzle-like layers of ‘shooting and protective patches’. The resulting pieces were strange and seductive, the result of hours of experimentation and meticulous assembly. ‘The childish idea of taking an engine apart to see how it works,’ Green said of his process, which is one of enquiry and curiosity. Walking back out of his studio into London’s Docklands – currently in its own state of reinvention, surrounded by looming cranes and construction sites – the excitement for his return was palpable.

Wallpaper* Design Awards 2025: the fashion winners

Indeed, the show spoke to a wider mood in fashion, whereby its most intriguing designers are eschewing the pedestrian in favour of experimentation and high-minded design. It is a riposte, no doubt, to the so-called era of ‘quiet luxury’ and ‘stealth wealth’ – that post-pandemic moment of stratospherically expensive cashmere sweaters and swaddling silhouettes – and a response to the frenetic, tremulous times in which we live. The resulting collections spanned the thrilling (John Galliano’s triumphant Artisanal show for Maison Margiela), the unexpected (Rick Owens’ 200-strong old Hollywood epic featuring his parading white-clad ‘army of love’) and those that mined a feeling of childlike wonder, like Matthieu Blazy’s colourful S/S 2025 outing at Bottega Veneta, which took place amid a menagerie of leather beanbag animals. ‘I wanted to feel the primal pull of fashion once more,’ said the designer. ‘The joy of looking, discovering and dressing: the power of wow.’

Our Design Award winners – which include Green’s ‘biker jacket’ and a purposely crumpled overcoat from Blazy – were also chosen for their wow factor. Transcending the everyday, they are clever, sculptural, sometimes weird; each relies on process, craft and construction. When selecting the pieces, we were in part led by the thinking behind Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons’ S/S 2025 womenswear collection for Prada, which the designers described as a rallying call against the internet algorithm; the way it silos us into bubbles, smoothing our tastes towards pure hegemony (‘we like things because people tell us to like them,’ said Mrs Prada backstage). Instead, they wanted to create a collection that rejected the ‘derivative and expected’ through 49 unique looks, a riot of colour and silhouette. ‘We thought of each individual as a superhero – with their own power, their own story,’ said Simons.

We’ve also rejected the derivative and expected. We were seduced by the work of Duran Lantink and Ellen Hodakova Larsson, both awarded at the 2024 LVMH Prize for Young Fashion Designers for their distinct viewpoints. The work of the Dutch-born Lantink – with its smooth, bulbous protrusions, like inflatables have been snuck under the surface of his garments – is bold and challenging in the way it transforms the body but remains rooted in everyday garments. He is confident that he will see them worn on the street (and his growing stockist list seems to agree). Swedish designer Larsson works with deadstock garments, turning the earnest connotations of upcycling on their head and conjuring up a surreal glamour with pieces made from discarded objects (we chose a dress made from stitched-together faux fur hats).

Other winners include Francesco Risso’s S/S25 collection for Marni, which reimagines elegant midcentury silhouettes in paper-like fabrics evoking fur and feathers, as if twisted fashion illustrations come to life. Like Blazy, it spoke of a primal desire to dress up and play, and was one of our highlights of the season. Another was Nicolas Ghesquière’s show for Louis Vuitton, which kicked off with a runway, formed from the house’s trunks, rising from the floor, its liberated mood reminiscent of high-voltage 1980s shows. The collection riffed on the same era: bold wide-shouldered jackets, flourishes of tulle, pirate-style pants, and a vibrant mash-up of print and adornment. Or the one-legged trousers, featured here, which loop cleverly around the lower body and introduce an intriguing new silhouette.

Construction is always on the mind of Satoshi Kondo, who is leading Issey Miyake into exciting new realms while retaining the pioneering spirit of the house’s namesake. This season, he looked to washi, inspired by the traditional handmade Japanese paper’s ability to fold and be shaped that reminded him of playing with origami sheets as a child (the dress we chose, with its undulating silhouette, recalls crumpled paper). Victoria Beckham’s collections also saw her experiment with forms, including a dress that saw fabric laid over twisting, wire-like rods. It’s exciting to see a designer refusing to rest on their laurels or take the easy route.

It has undoubtedly been Jonathan Anderson’s year, though. At both Loewe and his eponymous label JW Anderson, he proved his ability to shift the eye, to endlessly interrogate the way that we wear and perceive clothing. His S/S 2025 womenswear collection for Loewe featured featherweight dresses crafted over bouncing cage-like constructions, the delicate wires intricately welded together by hand, alongside elongated dress shoes, and feather T-shirts hand-painted with the work of Van Gogh and Manet, a play on ‘band merch’.

At JW Anderson, he said he wanted to intuit ‘where the next decade is going’, with a purposely reduced collection of sharply flared skirts and garments printed with extracts from an essay by British art critic and Bloomsbury Group member, Clive Bell. Anderson explained post-show that it explores ‘the idea of art and design and how they sit together’, though he elaborated that he was less interested in the essay’s content and more in ‘the modernity of text on a white page’. ‘There needs to be a narrowing of things,’ he continued. ‘[This collection] is about the idea of taking a blank page and starting afresh.’ For Anderson – and indeed the rest of the designers assembled here – the possibility of that blank white page seems endless. The question is, where next?

Find all the Wallpaper* Design Awards winners in the February 2025 issue of Wallpaper* is available in print on newsstands from 9 January 2025, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

Models: Awek Gak Chol at Titanium Management, Arthur Del Beato at Milk Management. Casting: Ikki Casting at WSM Hair: Tobia Bartolini using Oribe. Make-up: Michelle Dacillo at Agency 41 using Laneige. Manicure: Cherrie Snow at Snow Creatives using Boy de Chanel Le Vernis and Chanel La Crème Main. Photography assistant: Michel Bewley Fashion assistant: Nathan Fox. Production assistant: Archie Thomson. Digi tech: Alexander Brunacci.

Beauty and fashion are close bedfellows. But in 2024, this relationship got even cosier, with a litany of turbocharged crossovers between the two disciplines.

The year began with Pat McGrath’s viral porcelain doll make-up for John Galliano’s tenure-defining Maison Margiela Artisanal S/S 2024 show. Later, during September’s S/S 2025 show season, Olivier Rousteing welcomed the much-anticipated Balmain Beauty. (As well as releasing a line of perfumes called ‘Les Éternels’, the Balmain runway collection included clothes and accessories directly referencing the fragrance bottles, alongside yet-to-be-released products such as lipsticks and eyeshadows).

In October, Celine debuted its first-ever beauty line, with a red lipstick called ‘Rouge Celine’, designed by Hedi Slimane. (Slimane announced his departure from the house soon after). During the same month, Matthieu Blazy unveiled a collection of Bottega Veneta fragrances in Murano glass bottles. Last week (12 December 2024) it was revealed that Blazy would be stepping down from Bottega Veneta and into the role of creative director at Chanel. The day before that, news broke that John Galliano would be exiting Maison Margiela.

If one is to believe fashion’s rumour mill, there are more major changes yet to come in the new year. But if the past 12 months have taught us anything, beauty is going to be a huge part of whatever these changes may be. Here, Wallpaper* takes a closer look at a selection of key fashion-meets-beauty moments, which set the tone for 2025 and beyond.

How 2024 brought beauty and fashion closer than ever before

Beauty on the runway, from Maison Margiela to Marc Jacobs

Even if you still haven’t seen the videos of Maison Margiela Artisanal S/S 2024, where John Galliano’s cast of models (including the likes of Gwendoline Christie) staggered beneath the arches of the Pont Alexandre III in Paris, dressed as dolls plucked straight from Émile Zola’s demi-monde, you’ll have seen the make-up. Or, perhaps the endless reproductions of it across Instagram and TikTok at least. After all, almost immediately after the Pat McGrath-created look appeared on the runway, the internet was ablaze with beauty creators trying to decode the secret formula to the waxen, porcelain skin.

The hubbub around the look reached such a fever pitch that McGrath eventually weighed in herself, sharing the lengthy list of products – including a dizzy combination of peeling masques layered and dried directly on the skin with a hairdryer – that it took to achieve. (Ever the savvy entrepreneur, though, Dame Pat also revealed that her empire-scale beauty business, Pat McGrath Labs, is in the process of developing an all-in-one product for fans eager to get the look).

If there’s another fashion figure who won big in the beauty stakes this year, it would have to be Marc Jacobs, who collaborated with McGrath on a limited edition ‘MatteTrance’ lipstick to mark the 40th anniversary of the American design’s namesake brand.

On the runway, however, it was the S/S 2024 40th anniversary Marc Jacobs show, held in March, which saw the likes of Alex Consani and Kaia Gerber transformed into living dolls (a key theme this year, it would seem).

Strutting out from beneath large-scale Robert Therrien sculptures, their clumped eye make-up by Diane Kendal was offset with hectic 1960s-esque bouffants from Duffy. The label’s second show of the year for A/W 2024, which took place in July, pushed the all-pervasive doll theme yet further, with models sporting cartoonish overblown pastel eyelid covers, sewn from fabrics and trimmed with spidery faux lashes.

Beauty-inspired collections, from Balmain to Abra

But runway beauty went the extra mile in 2024, with collections even taking direct inspiration from beauty products themselves.

At Balmain, Olivier Rousteing used the house’s S/S 2025 show, staged in September, as an opportunity to toast a new line of perfumes called ‘Les Éternels’ and tease yet-to-be-released Balmain Beauty products. Flacon-shaped clutches, trompe l’oeil lipstick heels and eyeshadow palette pochettes figured alongside dresses embroidered with depictions of scarlet tinted lips and lacquered nails. (In 2022, Balmain partnered with Estée Lauder to bring Balmain Beauty to life. William P. Lauder, grandson of Estée and chairman of executive chairman of The Estée Lauder Companies, watched the collection unfold from the front row).

Elsewhere, independent label Abra leaned into beauty-inspired design for its A/W 2024 show, presented over Paris Fashion Week in February. The brand was founded in 2019 by Abraham Ortūno Perez, who has worked with Jonathan Anderson on footwear for both JW Anderson and Loewe. In particular, Perez is responsible for the former’s giant chain mules and the latter's surrealist sandals for S/S 2022, which included heels in hyper-realistic broken eggs, bars of soap and bottles of nail polish.

For the Abra collection in question, make-up brushes were transformed into necklaces, while lipsticks and mini eyeshadow palettes became earrings and brooches. There was also an oversized white T-shirt dress, which appeared as though the model had wiped her hands on it after applying foundation.

Beauty launches, from Celine to Bottega Veneta

2024 was as much about what landed on shop floors as what we saw on the runways, with the year bringing a glut of beauty launches from brands and houses.

One of the most memorable is Celine’s first-ever make-up product, ‘Le Rouge Celine’, a classic satin-finish scarlet hue that comes in an exquisite gold case, developed under the direction of Hedi Slimane. The entire cosmetics line, Celine Beauté, is set to continue under his successor Michael Rider, with more products such as eyeliner, eye pencils and more coming next year.

Elsewhere, Victoria Beckham’s booming beauty empire expanded further, with a collaboration with Augustinus Bader on a concealer pen, which contains the science-led skincare brand’s patented TFC8 technology. Augustinus Bader, which was founded by its namesake biomedical scientist and CEO Charles Rosier, is no stranger to fashion partnerships, having previously teamed up with the likes of Haider Ackermann. (On another note, Ackermann joined Tom Ford in September 2024, drumming up intrigue around the direction the French-Colombian designer will take its revered fragrance and beauty line, which recently put out a lipstick campaign starring Angelina Jolie).

Victoria Beckham Beauty debuted ‘21:50 Rêverie’ – a scent inspired by a twilight dinner she and her husband David once had in the Javan rainforest – by perfuming the designer’s S/S 2025 show space with it. (This wasn't the only time that scent was seen on the runway this year, with Burberry perfuming its A/W 2024 show space with ‘Ivy’ by Perfumer H).

Acolytes of Matthieu Blazy’s Bottega Veneta were blessed with scented candles in volcano-glazed pots and five perfumes including ‘Come With Me’ and ‘Acqua Sale’, all inspired by Venice, the ultra-luxe label’s home city. Each was housed in glass bottles that echoed the texture of handblown Murano and perched on a miniature Verde Saint Denis marble plinth.

Beauty and fashion in 2025, from Dries Van Noten to Miu Miu

Keeping track of the developing relationship between the worlds of fashion and beauty in 2024 was truly a head-spinning task. This year also saw Dries van Noten take a final bow as creative director of his brand, after almost a decade at its helm. (On 9 December, it was revealed that Julian Klausner would succeed him).

However, Van Noten will continue to work on its beauty and fragrance division, stoking excitement around how its offering could develop. As the designer told Wallpaper* in the December 2024 issue: ‘My life changed quite a lot this year,’ he says. ‘It’s an exciting time. We had some storms, with big trees falling over, so there is more work to do in the garden and some thinking to be done.’

Perhaps the launch to look out for next year, though, is the arrival of Miu Miu beauty. Launching by way of a licencing agreement with L’Oréal, the new line expands the Prada Group’s beauty foothold, which was first established in 2023 with Prada Beauty, under the creative direction of Lyndsey Alexander.

It is also worth keeping an eye on Chanel. Although beauty and fragrance will not be under new creative director Matthieu Blazy’s direct purview, it will nonetheless be interesting to see how his creative vision informs and interacts with this vital and storied branch of the French house.

Although I’m Wallpaper’s resident beauty editor, this gift guide takes a more eclectic approach, which I hope will inspire your festive shopping habits. (For fragrance ideas, head to this Wallpaper.com feature on winter perfume. Or if you’re on the hunt for a scented candle, then look no further).

Here, however, you will find unique pieces for the home, including a mid-century silver ashtray in the shape of a lily, sourced by London-based interior designer Hollie Bowden. Plus, an archival poster for Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut – a film which captures the oh-so-festive feeling of turning up alone to a fancy dress party.

There’s also a pair of kitten-heeled ‘Campo’ loafers by Loewe – a style universally beloved by the Wallpaper* team – and iridescent, bottle-green eye-make up from Victoria Beckham Beauty, which I plan to wear whilst sipping Champagne on New Year’s Eve.

Wallpaper* beauty editor Hannah Tindle’s gift guide

A Hollie Bowden ashtray

Hollie Bowden is a London-based interior designer who also sources unique objects for the home. This silver ashtray in the shape of a lily was created c.1950-1960, with cocktail parties in mind. Each of the six petals can be removed individually, becoming vessels for cigarette ash. Disclaimer: I do not encourage nicotine consumption. But this would make for a decorative item or a handy receptacle for burning incense. (I also have my eye on this Tiger's Eye blanket from Bowden’s recent collaboration with artist Cesca Dvorak).

Hollie Bowden Silver Petal Ashtray, £500; Hollie Bowden x Cesca Dvorak Tiger's Eye Blanket, £350.

shop.holliebowden.com

A Dr Karen Doherty gift card

Dr Karen Doherty is an aesthetic medicine practitioner taking a ‘less is more’ approach to injectables and non-invasive procedures. Her clinic, located in North London’s Stoke Newington, offers a wealth of different procedures, including NeoGen plasma and polynucleotides. And, the clinic now also offers gift cards to put towards any treatment of your choice.

More information on Dr Karen Doherty gift cards can be found on the clinic's website.

drkarendoherty.com

A La Bonne Brosse hairbrush

A contemporary rival to the storied grooming brand Mason Pearson, Parisian label La Bonne Brosse creates design-led hairbrushes in a spectrum of colours, built to last a lifetime. Each is tailored to specific hair types and concerns, whether it’s loss, dryness or scalp-stimulation. (Taking a diagnostic quiz on the La Bonne Brosse website will guide you towards the right brush according to your needs).

La Bonne Brosse, N.02 The Care & Detangling Hair Brush, £138.

labonnebrosse.co.uk

A pair of Loewe loafers

Wallpaper’s style team are huge fans of the ‘Campo’ Loafer by Loewe. Fashion & creative director Jason Hughes has a pair in tan suede and fashion features editor Jack Moss is coveting a boat shoe iteration, included here in his gift guide. I would very much like the kitten-heeled version, which is available in leather or brushed suede.

Loewe 'Campo' loafer, price between £875-£925.

loewe.com

An Eyes Wide Shut poster from Posteritati

Posteritati has been sourcing archival film posters since 1995. (Though located in New York, it ships worldwide). It was difficult to make a selection from the selection on its website. But a French language poster for Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut — a film set in December that captures the festive feeling of turning up alone to a fancy dress party and making small talk with strangers — seemed like a fitting choice.

Posteritati, Eyes Wide Shut poster, $175.

posteritati.com

A Victoria Beckham eyeliner

I’ve been meaning to try the shimmer and jewel textures of Victoria Beckham Beauty’s ‘Satin Kajal Liner’ for some time now. And what better time than when party season kicks into full gear? The colours ‘Olive’ and ‘Sequin Green’ happen to coordinate perfectly with a bottle of champagne. I plan on using them with ‘Vast Lash’ mascara to create smudgy, smoky eye make-up for New Year’s Eve. (For something even punchier, the brand has also just launched an ‘Emerald’ shade of its ‘Lid Lustre’).

Victoria Beckham Beauty ‘Satin Kajal Liner’, £32.

victoriabeckhambeauty.com

A Celine cosmetic pouch

And the perfect place to keep said eyeliners is this cosmetic pouch from Celine. Crafted in leather and printed with the house’s ‘Triomphe’ monogram, it’s also the ideal size to fit in the rest of my ‘on the go’ make-up collection, such as Nars’ ‘Radiant Creamy Concealer’ and Chanel’s ‘Baume Essentiel’ – two products that, at the risk of sounding dramatic, I can’t live without,

Celine small cosmetic pouch in ‘Triomphe’ canvas and leather, £270.

celine.com

A gift wrapped by Colford

For all your gift-wrapping needs, Colford has you covered. Founded by Nathan Cole and Imogen Beresford, the sustainable, design-led company was featured in the December 2024 issue of Wallpaper*. services businesses and individuals – and worked with the likes of Hermès, Stella McCartney, Cartier and Johnston’s of Elgin.

Colford bespoke wrapping services, price on request.

colford.co.uk

A charitable donation

A donation to a charitable organisation is a meaningful way to give back during this time of the year. The Hair and Beauty Charity has been running for 150 years, providing a safety net for hair and beauty professionals and their families through financial hardships. Any unwanted hygiene and self-care products can also be donated to the Hygiene Bank, a grassroots charity which tackling hygiene poverty.

Head to the links below to find out more.

hairandbeautycharity.org

thehygienebank.com

Earlier this year, Jonathan Anderson described his S/S 2025 menswear collection as one of ‘irrational clothing’ – an embrace of the strange and the unexpected, inspired by the experimental attitude towards dressing he had witnessed among young people at Primavera Festival in Barcelona earlier that summer. ‘The experimentation with clothing among younger generations is incredible,’ he said at the time. ‘The eye has changed.... people want something that is really challenging.’

Anderson is astute with a soundbite, and the idea of ‘irrational clothing’ could equally have been applied to the womenswear collections shown this past month in New York, London, Milan and Paris. By and large, there was a marked disavowal of ‘quiet luxury’, seeing restraint thrown out the window in the pursuit of the bold and eclectic. If sometimes this led to a lack of cohesion – with designers seeming to ricochet between ideas – when it was done well, it made for some enlivening fashion moments. Such was the case at Prada, where Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons presented a freewheeling collection that paid homage to individual style, traversing Prada eras and comprising 49 near-completely different looks filled with colour, texture and shifting silhouettes. A similarly eclectic approach provided transporting collections from Valentino, Bottega Veneta, Loewe and Louis Vuitton, which were among the highlights of the season.

Here, Wallpaper* fashion features editor Jack Moss unpacks the S/S 2025 womenswear shows, from an embrace of the eclectic to a new mood in tailoring, and clothing where nothing was quite what it seemed.

The season was an homage to individual style

A Prada show is usually a barometer for the season, such is the knack that Miuccia Prada has for shifting the fashion needle, reimagining the familiar in oftentimes electrifying new ways (now, she does so alongside Raf Simons, her co-creative director and another fashion soothsayer). For S/S 2025, a radical new proposition from the pair: the decision to do away with trends or thematics entirely, choosing instead to present a freewheeling and eclectic collection that celebrated individual style. It was a riposte, said Mrs Prada backstage, to the way that the social-media algorithm smooths personal style and siloes us into social-media echo chambers. ‘We are driven by algorithms,’ she said. ‘We like things because people tell us to like them.’ As such, the pair spoke about rejecting the ‘derivative and expected’ for a stream of 49 near-entirely different looks that veered between sculptural high-shine silver skirts dotted with enormous eyelets, leather dresses with BDSM hooks and elements of trompe l’oeil (there were also feathers, bug-like sunglasses, and day-glo anoraks). It made for an enticing visual feast, ‘a Prada for each individual’. ‘We thought of each individual as a superhero – with their own power, their own story,’ said Simons.

Also in Milan, Matthieu Blazy struck a similar mood at Bottega Veneta, which he described as an attempt to evoke a sense of childhood wonder (as such, the animal-shaped beanbag chairs were a reference to the scene in E.T. when the title character hides amid a closet full of cuddly toys). Blazy said that the collection began by thinking about a suited businessman taking his child to school while carrying their pink cartoon rucksack or lunchbox over his shoulder. The collection was full of such juxtapositions, seeing ‘Italian sartorialism’ clashed with playful flourishes, from tasselled wigs to blown-up tailoring and animal motifs. Like at Prada, barely two looks were the same, and it was a definitive statement that luxury fashion needn’t be discreet nor restrained – rather, it should spark joy. ‘[This collection] encompasses the joy of looking, discovering and dressing,’ the designer said. ‘Last season was maybe more contemplative. But at the same time, we need beauty. We need joy. We need this moment for ourselves, and continue to play.’ In Paris, Nicolas Ghesquière felt similarly liberated – his 1980s-infused collection seemed to recall the flamboyant, individual style of the New Romantics, albeit with the designer’s always-futuristic sheen – while Alessandro Michele opened his tenure at Valentino with a musing on beauty that was as richly expansive as his collections for Gucci (he left the Italian house in 2022). Over the collection’s mammoth 85 looks were hundreds of elements, among them ruffles, feathers, polka dots, floral motifs, wide-brimmed hats, facial piercings, ladylike handbags (sometimes worn two-a-piece) and ribbon-tied pumps. Again as at Prada, it was a bold invitation to experiment with clothing – a maxim that defined the season.

Designers reimagined the everyday

Despite its more dramatic flourishes, Blazy’s latest collection for Bottega Veneta was rooted in the idea of everyday style (‘everyday adventures’, is how he described the collection’s mood). As such, objects like the plastic corner-shop bag – here recreated in heat-pressed nylon – were elevated onto the runway, alongside bunches of flowers (woven from leather), brown paper bags (more leather), and shopping baskets (also leather). Such transformations were also applied to clothing: this season, he continued to riff on everyday garments like jeans, crumpled T-shirts and corporate tailoring, albeit in luxurious style. ‘I was interested in the simple acts of fashion that happen everyday,’ said Blazy. Demna, creative director of Balenciaga, is also known for taking disparate objects – like crisp packets, toolboxes and rubbish sacks – and turning them into fashion accessories. This season, though, Demna looked towards archetypal garments, like denim jeans, and radically altered their proportions (his version sat perilously low on the waist). Elsewhere, dresses looked as if a classic trench coat had been tied around the body, while padded jackets were reshaped to recall Cristóbal Balenciaga’s ‘cocoon’ silhouette.

At Issey Miyake, models carried shopping-style bags filled with bunches of flowers, as if on a trounce to the market, while Anderson’s latest Loewe show featured feathered T-shirts handpainted with works by Vincent Van Gogh, including Irises and Sunflowers. Reflecting the designer’s idiosyncratic approach, these were not inspired by encountering the paintings in a gallery, but by the reproductions he sees on tea towels and T-shirts while driving to work each day past the tourist markets that line the River Seine. ‘We get so used to them that they become a kind of high-low culture,’ he said, placing what he called the ‘burned-out’ images in a new context as an attempt to shift the eye. ‘[They are artworks] we are always magnetically drawn to... There’s something that we want to be part of, something, even if we don't understand it.’ The same can be said for Anderson’s collections for Loewe, which continue to intrigue.

There was a tailoring redux

Backstage after that show for Loewe, Anderson touched on the evolution of tailoring at the house during his tenure. ‘Historically, tailoring was something Loewe wasn’t good at for a long time, but I think we’ve been able to do it right, and come up with a kind of signature,’ he said. ‘Tailoring is about the subtlety of the change, and it’s taken me years to understand that.’ His proposition here was a tailored jacket with long, gently flared sleeves and baggy trousers that twisted cleverly towards the waistline. The result was roomy and generous, though the silhouette – a move from a relatively narrow shoulder line towards the more voluminous weight of the trouser – was one of louche elegance. It was proof that tailoring remains fertile ground for designers, something Simon Chilvers discussed in the September Style Issue of Wallpaper*, in regards to men’s tailoring. Womenswear, if anything, allows for even more sartorial experimentation, unrestrained by the still-conservative mores of men’s suiting.

Such experiments were in evidence across the various cities: in Paris, Victoria Beckham turned blazers inside out or sliced tailored trousers down the leg to expose the pocket lining, while another trouser shape sat away from the waistline through clever use of corsetry (in New York, Tory Burch evoked a similar effect on skirts). At Dolce & Gabbana in Milan, jackets were inserted with a Jean Paul Gaultier-inspired ‘cone-bra’ (an ode to Madonna, who sat front row and inspired the collection), while at Emporio Armani, the designer revived his 1980s suit and tie for women with a multitude of iterations of the blazer, including those folded sharply along their front. At Seán McGirr’s sophomore show for McQueen, jackets were cut to evoke the feeling that they were being grasped close by their wearer to protect them against the elements. Though perhaps the most seductive proposition for this season’s tailoring was that at Saint Laurent, where Anthony Vaccarello revived the languid, broad-shouldered tailoring of his menswear collection earlier this year – which was no doubt was inspired by Mr Armani’s tailoring of the 1980s – to evoke the wardrobe of Yves Saint Laurent himself, from a fluid black tuxedo (modelled by Bella Hadid who also wore the couturier’s famous thick-rimmed glasses) to beige and grey double-breasted tailoring.

American fashion was dissected

On the final Tuesday of New York Fashion Week was the first – and perhaps only – television debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. Such was the anticipation there were fears that Luar’s runway show, due to take place that evening, would be underattended (it wasn’t: Madonna even made a rare front-row appearance), while those already travelling to London for the next fashion week leg made complicated plans to watch the debate while in the air (they managed, thanks to a BBC iPlayer live stream and aeroplane wifi). Which is to say, the upcoming election loomed large in New York, prompting a dissection of American fashion and what it represents – or what it could represent. Such was the case at Willy Chavarria’s latest show, which saw the designer present an homage to America’s immigrant communities, like those he grew up around in his home city of Fresno, California (Chavarria is the child of an Irish-American mother and Mexican-American father). He did so through riffs on uniforms: hotel managers, farm workers, and employees at electronics chain Circuit City, albeit in his distinct style, which instils a mood of elegance through abundant silhouettes and references to haute couture. ‘Given the time that we’re in – around the corner from a major election – I wanted to shine a light on the people who make this country work,’ he told Wallpaper* at the time. ‘It’s about giving, showing dignity to all of these people.’ Afterwards, guests were given a sticker to remind them to vote.

Other designers looked towards the history of American fashion: Tory Burch continued to reference figures like Claire McCardell, a pioneer of American sportswear, as inspiration for her breezy summer collection, while Tommy Hilfiger drafted Wu-Tang Clan to perform at his latest show, a reminder of the longtime synergy between his namesake label and hip hop music (the show took place on a former Staten Island ferry owned by the comedians Pete Davidson and Colin Jost). Sometimes it took an outsider’s eye: against the backdrop of the gleaming New York skyline in Brooklyn Bridge Park, Off-White creative director Ib Kamara staged his debut show in the city, in part an ode to founder Virgil Abloh’s American heritage. It made for a vivid, continent-swapping collection from the Sierre Leone-born designer, which celebrated America as a cultural melting pot. ‘I have vivid memories of what America, and New York in particular, represented in the collective imagination of Africans: a dreamland of utopias made real, a place of opportunities,’ he said. Also making his debut in New York was Belgian designer Pieter Mulier, who showed his latest collection for Alaïa in the dramatic spiralling atrium of the Guggenheim Museum, swapping from Paris for the season. Conjuring the easy glamour of figures like Charles James, Adrian and Halston, as well as McCardell, it was an exemplary collection that showed the rich potential American fashion history still holds for contemporary designers (it was a show that felt like it had been percolating since his exit from American powerhouse Calvin Klein, where he worked alongside Raf Simons, in 2018). ‘[This collection] is a celebration of an American ideology of dress, and through that of a spirit that can unite New York and Paris – of the body in motion, liberated,’ Mulier said. ‘As Alaïa always has been.’

Sometimes things weren’t what they seemed

Balenciaga’s S/S 2025 show began with what appeared to be lingerie, though on closer inspection was actually a series of nude bodysuits embroidered with bras, knickers and stockings for a playful visual trick. It captured a mood of disorientation which ran through the season, reflecting the menswear shows earlier this year. Back then, Anderson spoke about ‘things not being what they seem’ in his JW Anderson collection (inspired by the experience of hypnotherapy dredging up past memories), while at Prada the designers spoke about the idea of ‘truth and pretence, the real and the unreal’, a response, they said, to a world where these categories feel increasingly blurred. As such, the technique of trompe l’oeil – the illusion of one garment imprinted onto another – continued to be evoked by designers across women’s fashion month, from JW Anderson’s mini dresses decorated with faux buttons and zips, to printed fur collars and belts in-set into trousers at Prada. Meanwhile, at Moschino, simple white-cotton garments adorned with childlike impressions of trench coats and sailor’s scarves. A similarly illusory mood was conjured in pieces that appeared to have a life of their own – or, indeed lived a life already – whether purposely creased garments at Ferragamo, Bottega Veneta or Victoria Beckham, or dresses at Prada constructed with twisting wired seams. Set into skewiff proportions, they appeared to be leaping off the models’ bodies.

Revisit our coverage of New York, London, Milan and Paris fashion weeks.

If ever there was a time to hone your working uniform it is the autumn, a season which, after the hot and heady rush of summer, marks the moment to pack up your holiday wardrobe and embrace the strangely seductive pull of officewear – a mood of grown-up polish that draws you back to your desk and the routine of the nine-to-five.

This needn’t suggest tedium: the A/W 2024 collections offer an altogether twisted view of city dressing, seeing futuristic and sculptural silhouettes meet unexpected flourishes of texture in a corporate palette of navy, grey and black. Alongside, riffs on the classic overcoat: like Acne Studios’ version in moulded leather, which creative director Jonny Johansson likened to Estonian artist Villu Jaanisoo’s enormous rubber armchairs that were dotted around the runway when the collection was revealed in Paris earlier this year. ‘[It’s] rooted in toughness and human form, leather and denim,’ Johansson says of the full-throttle collection.

A/W 2024’s twisted officewear

Victoria Beckham describes her A/W 2024 collection as taking the silhouettes at the core of her brand and ‘abstracting’ them, often deconstructing them to their essence and rebuilding them into new propositions. This includes office-style tailoring, whereby blazers are redesigned to hang on the front of the body, leaving the back exposed, as one might hold a garment to the body before trying on an outfit. At Sportmax, the wide, notched lapels of a tuxedo are combined with a classic elongated grey coat for statement-making outerwear that need not be removed when you step inside the office.

Meanwhile at JW Anderson and Louis Vuitton, the idea of a sculpted waist is explored in different ways by Jonathan Anderson and Nicolas Ghesquière, two designers who defined the A/W 2024 season with imaginative and intriguing collections. At JW Anderson, a grey sweater has a darted waist for a pinched silhouette recalling tailoring or dressmaking, while at Louis Vuitton, a sculptural jacket comes with the kind of sharp, futuristic line which has defined Ghesquière’s postmodern approach during his ten-year tenure at the house (the A/W 2024 collection was a celebration of the past decade, seeing the French designer revive his archive anew).

In the heart of London’s Square Mile – the financial epicentre of the city – photographer Sasha Marro and Wallpaper* fashion and creative director Jason Hughes capture A/W 2024’s new working uniform as part of the October 2024 Guest Editors’ issue of Wallpaper*, which is on international newsstands now.

Model: Julia Rambukkana at The Milk Collective. Casting: Ikki Casting at WSM. Hair: Chloe Frieda using Authentic Beauty Concept. Make-up: Sunao Takahashi at St Luke using Dior Forever Foundation and Capture Totale Le Sérum. Photography assistants: Fred Barlet, Pablo Gallegos. Fashion assistants: Lucy Proctor, Nathan Fox. Production assistants: Minna Vauhkonen, Ady Huq, Archie Thomson. Retouching: IPP Studio.

This article appears in the October 2024 Guest Editors’ Issue of Wallpaper* available in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today.

Hard and soft, sweet and sharp: Pre-Fall 2024’s most intriguing looks are defined by a play on texture, seeing clean lines and pin-sharp tailoring meet shaggy, enveloping fabrics and touches of romance, from knitted candy-pink bows to twisted leather flowers. Whether the crackled vinyl of a Sportmax jacket, Alaïa’s delicate twists of merino wool, or layers of faux fur, shearling and leather, these are pieces that call out to be touched (and, indeed, treasured).

Captured in a series of portraits by Milan-based photographer Mattia Parodi and Wallpaper* creative and fashion director Jason Hughes, Dutch model Renee Does wears the defining looks of the Pre-Fall 2024 collections – from Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello to Bottega Veneta, Chanel and Celine – backdropped by a textural collage of draped fabric, modernist furniture and concrete. The story was originally featured in the Design Directory July 2024 Issue of Wallpaper*, on international newsstands now.

Pre-Fall 2024: the defining looks of the season

Model: Renée Does at Viva London. Casting: Ikki Casting at WSM. Hair: Tomi Roppongi at Julian Watson Agency using Bumble and Bumble. Make-up: Faye Bluff at Of Substance Agency using Byredo. Set design: Stilema Studio at Tristan Godefroy. Interiors: Olly Mason. Photography assistants: Pablo Gallegos, Tom Green. Fashion assistant: Samela Gjozi. Interiors assistant: Ady Huq. Digi tech: Jess Segal/

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

Victoria Beckham and Breitling have partnered to create a collection of limited-edition watches, with the Chronomat Automatic 36 Victoria Beckham series rethinking the familiar, clean lines of Breitling’s popular Chronomat.

‘Breitling has always pushed boundaries and is redefining Swiss watchmaking,’ says Beckham on why the collaboration felt like a natural one. ‘It’s all about effortless everyday elegance, which is very in line with my brand DNA and ethos. Their level of execution and master-watchmaking is incredible.’

The collection, limited to 1,500 pieces, is available in a series of colours inspired by Beckham’s S/S 2024 hues, with dials in peppermint, sand, grey and deep blue. 

Victoria Beckham and Breitling: fashion meets function

Says Georges Kern, Breitling CEO: ‘The women’s market is more important than ever. Breitling is the “cool and relaxed alternative” in the watch industry in regard to product design and advertising, steering away from the conventional notion of the purely romantic and classic timepiece. Breitling has a relevant history in the female segment, ranging from chic and streamlined timepieces for everyday wear to elaborate jewellery-like pieces for the evening. 

‘What they all had in common was a touch of utility that made them so very Breitling. The reason we approached Victoria Beckham is that she incorporates these values, which made her the perfect fit to lend the classic yet versatile Chronomat her signature style and give the timepiece a modern, radiant expression. Furthermore, her relevance within the fashion industry enables us to speak to fashion-savvy women while simultaneously reaching a broader female audience.’

The watches retain classic Chronomat features, including the metal rouleaux bracelet and raised rider tabs, juxtaposed against Beckham’s colourful dials. ‘I’m excited for the people to discover how Victoria Beckham's ideas and Breitling’s craftmanship and innovation came together to create an elegant and fresh new Chronomat,’ adds Kern. ‘The result is a chic, all-purpose timepiece for women who want the best of both worlds: fashion and function. The collection features refined details such as Victoria Beckham’s initials on the seconds hand, a subtle VB logo and inscription on the bracelet, as well as models in yellow gold, a material we specially revived for use on this line.’

Adds Beckham of the new watches, ‘They feel radiant and modern whilst retaining a real timelessness. They will be instantly recognisable as the Chronomat Automatic 36 Victoria Beckham collection. Colour is very much part of my brand DNA – the use of colour and colour combinations is something I have always loved.’

breitling.com

Back in February, the blustery winds of Storm Denis were the main, outfit-ousting concern for attendees of London Fashion Week. As street style stars, paparazzi and journalists bundled from landmark locations in Bloomsbury and Bank, cooing at the A/W 2020 collections, the thread of Covid-19 had barely entered their brains. Now, the A/W 2020 shows – their twinkling venues packed with guests, international press and glamorous stars – seem part of a parallel universe.

In the seven months that have passed, the luxury landscape has changed beyond recognition. In July the British Fashion Council – based on statistics from Oxford Economics – warned the UK government up to 350,000 jobs could be lost in the wake of Covid-19, and that sales this year could fall from £118bn to £88bn. British brands have announced closures – Henry Holland went into administration in April, and Pringle of Scotland has been paused indefinitely.

But this tumultuous period has also been one of creative hope and innovation. In April, designers Holly Fulton, Phoebe English and Bethany Williams launched the Emergency Designer Network, a volunteer led enterprise created to support the NHS with PPE. Designers including Simone Rocha, Emilia Wickstead and Roland Mouret joined the initiative, and in July, 100,000 surgical sets had been distributed to 28 individual hospitals. Hosts of other British brands also supported the Covid-19 crisis, with Burberry fast-tracking the delivery of over 100,000 surgical masks to the NHS and mobilising its trench coat factory in Castleford, Yorkshire, to create non-surgical gowns and masks for hospital patients. The BFC also established an emergency Fashion Fund, an initiative granting financial support to 37 British brands, including Roksanda, Richard Quinn and Rejina Pyo, totalling over £1,000,000.

Amongst the uncertainty came the question of how to stage fashion week. In July, men’s and couture fashion week moved online, and as part of this from-home era, the BFC announced London Fashion Week was to move to an innovative gender-neutral digital platform. In the midst of new Covid-19 restrictions in England, limiting gatherings and social events, S/S 2021 launched with 50 digital-only activations,  21 physical and digital, and a sprinkling of small, socially-distanced physical-only events. These activations included pre-recorded films, staged in locations like Epping Forest and a 19th century church in Yorkshire, intimate salon shows and collection appointments at venues including Hauser & Wirth and the Victoria Miro museum.

No stranger to spectacle, even in the era of social distancing, Burberry kicked off the proceedings with an otherworldly live show, streamed for the first time on Twitch, the live streaming service beloved of gamers worldwide. Chief creative officer Riccardo Tisci teamed up with German visual artist Anne Imhof, famous for ‘Faust’, her eerie 2017 performance piece inside the Venice Biennale’s German Pavillion, which featured patrolling snarling Dobermans. For Burberry, Imhof devised an industrial circular stage setting in the midst of the British countryside, a symbol to Tisci of renewal. Models walked – accosted by The Matrix-centric minders, clad in suits and sunglasses – and they sported vibrant tailoring, logo-splashed sportswear, sparkling party dresses and deconstructed trench coats. Tisci spoke of devising a modern fairy tale, centred on a love story blooming between a mermaid and a shark. So models sported sou'westers, fisherman's coats and shirts with scribbled shark prints. The nautical theme nodded to the oceanic history of the house. It’s famed for inventing waterproof gabardine, worn by the Navy and Arctic explorers in the early 20th century.

Unsurprisingly S/S 2021 had a strong socio-political pull. Michael Halpern – who spent spring making PPE at Royal Brompton Hospital – celebrated the heroines of the front line in a heart-warming film, dressing night tube drivers, nurses, bus station managers and gynecologists in his extravagant ballroom-worthy designs, like plumed puff ball dresses, tartan boucle gowns and polka dot pyjamas. 

Socially-minded Bethany Williams has been collaborating with The Magpie Project since 2019. The Newham-based charity works with children and mothers who are homeless or at risk of homelessness – 80 per cent of who have no access to public funds (NRPF). An estimated 100,000 children in the UK live in poverty because their parents immigration status denies them access to the UK’s welfare system. For S/S 2021's ‘All Our Children’, Williams included the families which are part of The Magpie Project, in a film celebrating the force of familial ties, with mothers and children sporting colourful hand-painted pieces created in collaboration with illustrator and artist Melissa Kitty. Williams worked with deadstock, organic and recycled materials, and the collection also features patchwork sportswear spliced from Adidas Originals swatches, corsets created in collaboration with Welsh designer Rosie Evans and lunch boxes and reading wallets woven out of book waste, developed with Tottenham-based Stevan Saville.

Out of crisis often comes optimism, and for Molly Goddard positivity came in collection pouring over with prismatic colours. ‘When we first came out of lockdown and decided to do a show, I wanted to do something really pared back,’ she explained. ‘But as we returned slowly to the studio after months of working as a team over Zoom, I realised how dark and depressing the last few months had been and more and more colour crept into the collection.’ For S/S 2021, Goddard proposed ruffled gingham skirts, frilled tulle crop tops, poufing parkas, and punky striped vests in tones of sea foam, scarlet and fuchsia. These colours nodded to papier-mâché Claes Oldenburg sculptures, found in the art collection of Guiseppe and Giovanna Panza. Goddard also unveiled a collaboration with Ugg, on a series of stompy flatform slippers and fluffy flats.

Emerging British-Asian designer Supriya Lele also saw optimism in embellishment. When she returned to her South London studio post-lockdown, she noted that each day her all-female team were adding glamour to their once dressed-down outfits. For the first time she added sequin to her fabric roster of light jersey and chiffon, creating gauzy wraparound pieces like mini dresses, camisoles and sarong skirts in vibrant tones, which nodded to the hues of her Indian heritage. ‘I thought I’d inject a bit of sparkle into what I’m doing. I’m feeling a bit more optimistic in a way,’ she explained. The collection also nodded to Lele’s adolescence spent listening to heavy metal, featuring sequin skirts spray-painted punkishly with an Indian motif and sheer creased crop tops resembling faded band tees. Her azure blue, turquoise and magenta colour palette was inflected with moodier dark chocolate and slime green

For brands, so long bolstered to traditional modes of presentation, S/S 2021 also offered up a chance to experiment. Christopher Kane spent lockdown creating acrylic glitter glue images of women – humorously labelled his "brats" – and he presented his colourful spring offering in his Mount Street store alongside these escapist artworks. ‘Painting during lock down replaced the void of making collections,’ he explained. ‘It became a way to escape my own mind - no rules, deadlines, or pressures.’ Victoria Beckham too took time to reassess. ‘Limitations can be liberating,’ the designer explained in the introduction to her S/S 2021 film. Her streamlined collection featured easy fluid dresses with seductive cut outs, flared tailoring and denim. Beckham returned to the intimate salon-show format of her early presentations, showcasing her spring looks at the Victoria Miro museum.

In a year, when lockdown may one be our sole collective recollection, designers were also fascinated by the concept of memory. At Preen, designers and partners Thea Bregazzi and Justin Thornton decamped to their home in Suffolk during lockdown. There they discovered the belongings of its former resident, an American art critic. These trinkets informed a collection which Preen worked on with their daughters - one inspired by fragments of memory, featuring floral patchwork dresses and panelled trench coats, created from deadstock fabrics, elements of the brand's own history. Richard Malone was also fascinated by the concept of time, when considering how to design for ‘real life’ when it’s been altered irrevocably. During lockdown, he read I’m Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid, and Doireann Ní Ghríofa’s A Ghost in the Throat, both works which deal with a contortion and curvature of time. His resulting collection offered up ‘rigorous comfort’ with voluminous draped dresses and high-shouldered tailoring, imagined in silk-like wool crêpe and velvet which Malone hand-washed in his own bath.

Having spent most of the year indoors (and possibly next year too), practical wardrobe solutions were also on the S/S 2021 agenda. For Roksanda Illincic who staged her presentation inside the Gasholders penthouse she designed last year – a space populated with soft tones and pieces by Charlotte Perriand and Lina Bo Bardi – recycled cashmere tracksuits bought a new ease to her aesthetic. Her set-up reflected the reality we’ve all faced since spring, featuring mis-en-scenes of lockdown life, like mothers and daughters lying in bed, and women washing up. Church’s also offered practical footwear solutions. The Northampton-based label, which usually presents its latest designs at Milan Fashion Week, debuted Dear Thomas, a film inspired by The Talented Mr Ripley, featuring modern twists on classic silhouettes, like sandals with tank-tread soles and a heeled version of its Dee Dee slide.

Simone Rocha also spoke of ‘looking for comfort and security in the extreme’. Her collections often denote feminine forms of protection, with models swathed in gauzy organza, layered silhouettes and resplendent ruffled embellishments. At her stripped back presentation at Hauser & Wirth, models strode within the stark gallery space, sporting voluminous designs that riffed on historical courtly elegance, like floor-pooling dresses in bias cut silk, taffeta knot detail gowns and metallic jacquard coats with emphatic waistlines. Beaded bralettes which tied with ribbon were designed to anchor the escapist silhouettes, and accessories placed emphasis on ergonomic design, like ballet shoes with rubber platform heels and net shoppers strung from sparkling beads.

For the last half decade, Margaret Howell has designed according to the tenets of timeless design. She spent lockdown at her home near the Suffolk coastline, gaining a renewed interest in sketching. The main design difference she noted was the inability to try on each piece in her S/S 2021 collection, which features oversized shapes like slouchy blazers, utilitarian pleated trousers and drop waist dresses in Swiss cottons and silks. Howell often revisits pieces in her archives – which look as contemporary today as they did when they were debuted – and blew up a polka dot print for spring. ‘My work has always been about trying to remain true to myself; it is a consistent style with subtle changes,’ she told Wallpaper* back in March. Howell's approach epitomises the importance of clothing that can withstand unprecedented lifestyle changes, balancing utility and luxury and resonating with shoppers whatever the season. 

From classic sportswear brands to high-end fashion houses, our selection of sportswear gets stretched to its limits in high octane photographs by Jori Komulainen. To match, we asked London-based stetching expert Blok studios to share some at-home movements for warming up muscles while you keep looking cool.

‘Morning uplift stretch’: low squat with chest opener 

1. Come into the lowest squat possible by bringing your feet wider than your hips and turning your toes out slightly.
2. Bring your hands to prayer and press your elbows against your inner thigh to open out across the chest.
3. Try to stay here for a full minute and focus on your breath.

‘Morning activation stretch’: cossack squat

1. From standing, spread your legs wide apart and go into a deep lunge.
2. Stretch out your right leg and try to send your hips back, as if sitting on a chair behind you. Find your lowest position and hold there for 10 seconds. 
3. While keeping your hips as low to the ground as possible starting shifting your weight to the same position on your left side. Hold here for 10 seconds.
4. Repeat this 5 times.

‘Mid-workday back stretch’: pulling back release

1. Find something belly-button height that you can pull against, like a bannister, door handle, or counter top.
2. Grab hold of it, step back until your torso is parallel to the floor and your legs are a straight 90 degrees to your torso.
3. Make sure you try to make your back as long as possible to help you elongate the muscles between your ribs and help you breathe deeper.

‘Late afternoon reenergize stretch': sphinx or seal stretch 

1. Lying face down on the floor, place your hands flat underneath your shoulders and press down. Lift your chest off the floor until your arms are straight. If this feels too intense, lower down onto your forearms.
2. Stay here for 30 seconds and repeat twice more with little rests in between. While doing this think about pushing your shoulders far away from your ears and squeezing your shoulder blades together.

‘Night time wind down stretch': supine twist 

1. Lying on your back with your left leg extended, hug your right knee into your chest.
2. Place your left hand on the outside of your right thigh and then draw the knee across to the left, aiming to bring the right knee to the floor. Make sure to keep both shoulder blades pressed down on the floor.
3. Spend 30 seconds on each side.

INFORMATION

bloklondon.com

Mood board: Rebellion has long been a buzzword of London Fashion Week — be it burgeoning avant-garde brands or Extinction Rebellion protesting against fashion’s polluting output for the second time this season outside the BFC Show Space. A gentler insurgence was on the mind of Victoria Beckham — who has in recent seasons bought a tension to her designs, which navigate fluidity and sharper tailoring in a spectrum of vibrant tones. ‘I wanted to be subversive yet sophisticated’, her show notes summarised, of a collection which opened with a bold flurry of all black looks, from cut out crepe dresses to boxy coats, paired with slick knee high boots. Feminine pleated culottes and gently flaring trouser suits were paired with school girl shirts and v-necks in cerulean and sunshine yellow, voluminous op art print dresses were densely ruched and featured flowing sleeves and bralette detail slip dresses were imagined in otter print foulard silk. Subtle subversion came in blouses imagined in masculine Lumberjack check and ribbed knits with geometric cutouts.

Finishing touches: A leather belt with two clasps formed from curling fingers bought a new dialogue to the classic bourgeois horse bit belt. Beckham has long championed a knee high boot in a spectrum of leathers, and for A/W 2020 she swapped last season’s peep-toe stiletto heel for a more vertiginous 60s platform.

Best in show: The was a timeless simplicity behind the monochrome eveningwear pieces that Beckham debuted at the show’s start. Particularly strong was a black knee skimming dress with a plunging décolletage and bell sleeves. Subversion and sophistication ticked off in one silhouette.

Mood board: ‘What excited me about this collection is the strange mix of colours, which is something we touched on last season but has really now become part of the DNA of Victoria Beckham,’ said the designer backstage. A riot of colour cavorted down her S/S 2020 catwalk at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office in Westminster, from spearmint to violet, candyfloss to caramel. Silhouettes were presented in contrast, from sleek bourgeois tailoring – like houndstooth suits with a trenchcoat thrown atop and slashed knee length skirts with chain belts – to easy, loose dresses with romantic ruffles, corsage details and a daring amount of décolleté. ‘There is a strangeness to the colours that really works,’ Beckham added. ‘A lot of people are afraid of those tones.’

Best in show: Beckham celebrated her 10th anniversary last season (A/W 2019 also marked the launch of her YouTube channel, S/S 2020 aligns with the anticipated release of her beauty line). At its launch a decade ago, Beckham’s brand was synonymous with slinky, skintight dresses. For spring, the silhouette skimming silhouettes marked a new seductive nonchalance. ‘They’re sexy without being tight and constricting,’ she said. ‘The ruffles on the dresses dance around girls' bodies and are so light.’

Finishing touches: An abstract scribble print emphasised the ease behind the collection, corsages had a splash of 1970s romanticism, and suede Mary Janes were imagined in Beckham’s bold colour palette.

Mood board: Victoria Beckham has had a busy week. We’ve had the announcement of an eponymous beauty line (after a successful collaboration with Estée Lauder) and her very own YouTube channel. Beckham is savvy and understands the reach this medium will have to fans of her fashion label and pop star-past alike. A live stream of her A/W 2019 show, held at the Tate Britain (and her second consecutive season in London following her S/S 2019 10th anniversary show) marked the YouTube channel’s debut.

Pops of scarlet, absinthe, Klein blue and lilac populated her luxurious collection, which offered a masterclass in soft 1970s draping and sharp tailoring. There were cascading fit and flare skirts which hit just below the knee, oversized skirt suits, houndstooth coats with chain details and sprinklings of sequins and blouses with neckerchief details (London’s most prominent microtrend, also see Symonds Permain and A.W.A.K.E Mode). There were new proportions here too, like snug Argyll knits layered over shirts with exaggerated collars.

Best in show: Beckham’s woman is smart and elegant. She dresses to look good, knows her fabrics, and has an executive-meets-evening élan. Patterns came courtesy of bourgeois chain prints tiled over draped silk blouses and dresses, incorporated into intarsia knits and embellished in sequins onto midi skirts. The fluffy and colourful Argyl sweaters and oversized chunky cardigans, added a laid back dimension, a dose of comfort amongst the most powerful pieces.

Finishing touches: ‘She’s proper but she’s definitely not prim,’ Beckham said of her woman, in the collection’s accompanying show notes. Flesh was notably absent here, but seductive second skin footwear came in the form of knee-high sock boots in leopard print, bright blue and lipstick red. A series of slick leather boots – a hybrid of a bow-detail pump and a knee high, had a pop-colour Guy Bourdin eroticism. 

Mood board: For so long the city of London has worn its youthful attitude on its sleeve; its arts education is the finest in the world; its streets are crammed full of diversity and dialogue. And yet what room does this leave for fledging designers looking to have a grown up business? What about selling dresses and dreams – making money? A handful of British labels are facing their tenth birthday this season. When they launched in 2008, Trump was a harmless character on television sets across America. Brexit was a portmanteau not yet realised; #metoo, #timesup and the consciousness around gender and identity were still locked in college campuses and not played out in the mainstream media. Instagram was still two years away! To keep up, Mary Katrantzou developed her artisanal sensibility and Jonathan Anderson his twisted feminine codes, whilst Victoria Beckham has built up a global brand for a new jet-set woman. After years of showing in New York, Beckham hosted her first ever show in London a stone’s throw from her Mayfair shop. The punk city needed her gloss and rigorous line.

Best in show: Beckham is her own best billboard – a woman who is proudly running both a home and a business. Here, the shtick about empowering women made sense. The opening look for spring was a fitted white trouser suit, worn with a tucked-in lace camisole and metallic leather slippers; it was both tough and trouble-free. The skinny pants with splits at the front, the micro floral blazers and fitted knit dresses were full of attitude. There was an ecclesiastical modernism to swooping evening dresses open at the back. Sharpness met softness. A red silk cami was layered with ivory, creating a pale blush.

Team work: What are codes? They’re what makes a designer instantly recognisable – they become a ‘thing’, a style, an attitude that makes sense in the context of everything else. Beckham spoke of wanting to look back for the coming season, unpacking the fluid line, masculine/feminine interplay and cerebral colour palettes she’s honed since launching her label with a range of strict, fitted dresses for S/S 2009. Today she wanted to explore choice and how that would look in her world. Trousers were slender or languid. Dresses and skirts went from midi to full length; fitted pieces shrugged over eased shapes. Billboards in the city have been plastered with Juergen Teller’s pictures of Beckham recreating their excellent S/S 2008 advertising campaign for Marc Jacobs in which she is seen emerging from a large shopping bag and giant shoebox. Her homage is a cheeky missive to anyone who ever doubted her.

Belgian chocolatier Pierre Marcolini has revealed his winter 2018 collection, alongside a new limited edition release with Victoria Beckham.

This year’s winter range continues to demonstrate the chocolate master’s commitment to evoking seasonal sensations. New flavours wrap up the haute chocolatairie’s Christmas favourites, and striking sculptural pieces are poised to adorn dinner tables this December.

This year's statuesque all-chocolate Christmas tree stands tall, decorated in dark chocolate ‘bells’ and accompanied by assorted pralines, available in new flavours such as coffee and hazelnut; nougat with Maldon sea salt; and traditional praline with Madagascan vanilla.

Meanwhile, Marcolini has expanded his line-up of design-minded collaborators, (which includes Tom Dixon and Maison Kitsuné), with another Wallpaper* game changer, Victoria Beckham. Beckham sought to commemorate a decade of her eponymous label by thanking those who have supported her from day one with a box of chocolates.

Meeting with Marcolini in Paris, the pair shared a mutual sensibility for love stories, and for moments with family and loved ones. Taking the chocolate Maison’s staple ‘Hearts’, Beckham and Marcolini combined rare and exotic ingredients to produce ‘Les Coeurs de Victoria Beckham’. Packaged in a refined pink box with embossed gold text, the set features four new exclusive flavours – casse-noisette; caramel salted butter; rose-passion; and yuzu – which are finished in varying shades of red and pink.

‘It is an honour to be chosen to work with Victoria,’ comments Marcolini. ‘Not only to create a box of chocolates to reflect her taste and personality, but also to celebrate the wonderful achievements of her fashion brand over the last decade.’

INFORMATION

‘Pierre Marcolini’s Xmas Melody’ is available from 9 November from The Marylebone Boutique, Selfridges, Harrods and online. The ‘Pierre Marcolini x Victoria Beckham ‘collection is available from 4 October from The Marylebone Boutique, Selfridges, Harrods online, as well as a pop-up in Victoria Beckham’s Dover Street outlet. For more information, visit Pierre Marcolini’s website and Victoria Beckham’s website

For a more recent collaboration from the designer, see Victoria Beckham and Breitling’s watch collection.

Scene setting: To commemorate the tenth anniversary of her label, Victoria Beckham chose a new venue to give her latest collection a fresh perspective. The James A Burden House, a landmarked Italian Renaissance style mansion on the Upper East Side just opposite the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design museum, proved to be the right place. With its ornamental spiral staircase, exquisite plasterwork and classically painted ceiling, the building’s intricate interior emphasised the clean construction and refined design of the collection’s pieces.

Best in show: Beckham gravitated towards a multi-layered and multi-textured look this season. Waists on coats and dresses were neatly cinched in, while shoulders were slightly emphasised to cut a strong figure. The use of crushed pleats, asymmetrical cuts and floral patterns imbued garments with an elegant femininity. Paired with masculine square-toed slingbacks and flat brogues in embossed leather, this truly was a portrait of the modern day woman.

Sound bite: ‘These clothes embrace the contours of the female form, echoing the design aesthetic that I originally started with. Here, a decade on, it is strong — presented in a new elevated and evolved form for my woman today,’ the designer stated.

When we pay a visit to the architect Farshid Moussavi in her temporary-ish offices in the City of London, she is wearing a pink Commes des Garçons top with what might be described as architectural interventions at the elbow. She was more than happy, though, to sport Simone Rocha, her pick for Best Women’s Fashion Collection A/W 17, in our shoot. Moussavi is a long-time fan and customer. ‘I first saw a few of her pieces in Selfridges,’ she says. ‘And this was before she was in Dover Street Market or had her own store.’ For Moussavi, Rocha works very much in the tradition of the great Japanese designers, while adding her own particular spin. ‘She does what the Japanese designers do in terms of the play with form and structure, but adds femininity and fun.

‘I think with Simone you are awarding an attitude that is more enduring,’ she adds. ‘It’s a bit like Commes des Garçons or Junya Watanabe, they don’t really work in fashion. And you can wear them forever. It is the right approach in terms of sustainability.’

Her pick for Public Building of the Year is also a case of smart and sustainable reuse – Thomas Heatherwick’s Zeitz MOCAA museum in Cape Town. ‘He transformed an existing building and showed a real boldness and confidence,’ she says. ‘I think it was difficult and brave and well done. The original building was so powerful and strong and he responded with equal strength.’

Best Women’s Fashion Collection winner, Simone Rocha A/W 17. See the winners of our Judges’ Awards here

It is Moussavi’s patience as much as her strength that is being tested by her largest current project. By now, the building which houses Moussavi’s pop-up office on Fenchurch Street should have been razed to the ground to make way for a 17-storey mid-rise tower with a fluted black glass façade. Brexit has temporarily stalled the development and Moussavi has had to smartly accommodate budget cuts. (This after wrangling with the City’s planning chiefs, who weren’t keen on her gradiated black glass, preferring the optics of transparency.)

Moussavi, co-founder of Foreign Office Architects and with a solo CV that includes the Museum of Contemporary Art in Cleveland and the Victoria Beckham store in London, remains sanguine, accepting it all as part of the journey with major projects. And the practice has plenty in the way of pleasant distractions, including a re-design for Harrods’ Toy Department. ‘They called and said, “Do you want to have a go?” It has been a great opportunity for us.’ For Moussavi, it was also a chance to be part of the re-thinking of bricks-and-mortar retailing. ‘It’s interesting because the space is going to be slightly smaller than their old toy department, because they are editing the offer down and trying to concentrate on things that you don’t really buy online.

‘We have tried to simplify the environment and play with colour,’ she continues. ‘With fashion stores you have to approach it like a gallery. It has to be a unique and precious setting, but also stay in the background. But [with] this the space has to be stronger than the toys. And they are already really colourful.’

A version of this article originally appeared in the February 2018 issue of Wallpaper* (W*227)

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Farshid Moussavi Architecture website

In celebration of Victoria Beckham’s use of artist Emily Young's jewellery in its A/W 2017 collection, the label has launched an exhibition of the renowned British sculptor’s organic and figurative forms at its Dover Street store in London.

Victoria Beckham first took note of Young’s creations on one of her frequent visits to the Louisa Guiness Gallery. The space in London’s Mayfair specialises in jewellery by artists including Jeff Koons, Cornelia Parker and Man Ray. Young's series of small lapis and chrysomelanite pendants, hung on gold chains or suspended as small scale sculptures on miniature plinths, caught the designer's eye.

‘I love how each piece looks almost like a found object,’ Beckham says of Young’s work. ‘There’s something very raw and natural about them, but at the same time you can read into each piece – some look like a torso, others could be the profile of a woman’s face, and of course the stones themselves are unbelievably beautiful.’

It was Young's scaled down designs, made from the offcuts of her larger hand-carved works, which prompted Victoria Beckham to work with the artist on a series of curving catwalk brooches for its A/W 2017 collection. For the collection’s opening look, a fragment of mottled lapis was pinned, like a found object, to a deftly tailored navy blazer.

‘The pieces can carry the same concentration as a life-sized or bigger piece,’ Young says. ‘They become portable sculptures, carrying all the natural wonder and beauty of the larger works.’

These portable pieces, among other works, like Quartzite Head of a Woman I (2015), Cloud Fire Head (2015) and Alpine Jade Forest Torso (2016), lent to Victoria Beckham by Bowman Sculptor, are dotted around the minimalist, Farshid Moussavi-designed store. Young’s raw stone creations work in contrast to the polished stainless steel and concrete interiors.

Encouraging creative partnerships, Victoria Beckham uses the interior of its 560 sq m boutique as a blank canvas for artists. In celebration of Frieze London in 2015, the label recruited Martin Creed to recreate Work No 2497 – the artist filling the space with cloud-like mounds of white balloons. ‘For me, Dover Street has always been about showing other artist’s creations,’ Beckham says. The brand’s celebration of Young's work, which straddles London Fashion Week, London Design Festival and Frieze London, denotes a collaboration of fine form.

INFORMATION
Emily Young’s sculptures are on view until 5 October. For more information, visit the Victoria Beckham website

For a more recent collaboration, see Victoria Beckham and Breitling's watch collection

ADDRESS

Victoria Beckham
36 Dover Street
London W1S 4NH

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Scene setting: Under the painted domed ceiling of Cipriani 25 Broadway, Victoria Beckham sent out a softly tailored collection comprising fluid trousers, sharp collared shirts, wide-shouldered jackets and gauzy, billowing dresses, in a perfect balance of power and femininity.

Mood board: Bringing back familiar silhouettes but reworking them in new fabrics featuring prints, pastels and embellishments, Beckham’s latest collection was a study in the multifaceted aspects of female identity. Transparent pencil skirts were paired with oversized men’s-style shirts and realised in candy pink and butter shades. Sleeveless trench coats resembled dresses thanks to the use of delicate fabrics that elegantly hung on the form. The mood was easy and comfortable, yet bold and confident in the clothing's restraint, making it a well-received showing in all regards.

Finishing touches: While known for her minimalist approach, Beckham embraced some sparkle this season with embellishments such a streaks of silver in a black midi skirt, iridescent flashes in bias cut dresses and a glittery shoe or two, topped off with an anklet.

Mood board: A visit to the Tate Britain to see an exhibition by the artist Paul Nash inspired the graphic prints that appeared on several dresses. The tailored blazers paired with flowing, billowy skirts made for a balance of masculine and feminine, in a sense empowering the female form.

Best in show: Victoria Beckham's entire collection looked comfortabl yet chic, but the graphic abstract print inspired by Nash on a long-sleeved, navy dress made for a striking, visual work of art. The minimal wool coats with a curved, sculptural sleeve made for a fresh approach to a classic wardrobe staple.

Finishing touches: A rectangle of fabric topped with two buttons, wrapped just below the elbow gave a plaid blazer a little extra depth at the sleeves. Chic, slouchy leather gloves seamlessly completed a number of the looks, like on a short-sleeved navy dress with translucent sleeves, and a loose suit.

Some of the largest architecture projects in the world are taking shape in a ground-floor atelier tucked away in London’s King’s Cross. Thomas Heatherwick set up his studio in 1994 after studying at Manchester Polytechnic and the RCA, and over the years he gradually scaled up its output, creating everything from furniture and installations through to buses, bridges, art museums and whole city blocks. Heatherwick now works alongside around 200 designers, 130 of whom have architectural training. The studio output is focused on big buildings. These include one of the largest mixed-use projects in China, a key component of a vast US private development, a California office for a tech colossus, and a new bridge for London, all of which are at various stages of planning and construction.

Despite this mega-structural ambition, every Heatherwick project can be infinitely zoomed into, right down to the smallest design component. This combination of scale and detail comes out of an absolute commitment to process, something that becomes evident the minute you sit down with Heatherwick to talk about his work... Read the interview in full here

In 20 remarkable years we have come across, written about, examined and exhumed a lot of remarkable people. On the following pages are 20 of them. This, though, is not a simple ranking of power and influence. These are stories that resonate, with which we find common purpose and cause.

Here are people who have sometimes stuck bloody-mindedly to a course, sometimes pivoted, re-examined and pushed in new directions, who have defied expectations and even open derision. They have shown courage under fire and grace under pressure.

They have transformed – from girl group popette to one of the fashion industry's smartest operators, for instance – and, over the last 20 years, have had a transformative influence in their field. Here are architects who build with a sense of the immaterial, artists who want to talk to everyone, experimentalists and food engineers, fashion designers who defy fashion and bob and weave like prize fighters, tech titans who have changed the way we do almost everything. One reinvented the hotel industry, another presents it with an existential threat. There is also a man who wants to save the world – or take us all to Mars if that doesn't work out. Either way, we'll be along for the ride.

Victoria Beckham’s transformation from pop celebrity and tabloid icon to the force behind a covetable fashion line is an extraordinary one. Indeed, when the Spice Girls burst onto the cultural landscape in 1996, it would have seemed unlikely that 20 years later she would be presiding over a label now fêted for its sleek, restrained lines.

But to hear Victoria Beckham tell it, she didn’t have ‘any grand expectations’ when making the transition from music to fashion. ‘I was just focused on creating clothes that I felt proud of and passionate about,’ says Beckham of launching her eponymous line in 2008. ‘The fact that the brand has since taken off in the way it has has been very humbling.’

Now, the label boasts its own handsome flagship store on London’s Dover Street, counts Net-A-Porter, Liberty and Barneys among its many stockists, and recorded a turnover of £34m in 2014.

But the signals that Beckham had an affinity for design were there at the start. She was the stylish Spice Girl who stood out amid her flashier bandmates. As her and her husband David’s fame grew, they embraced their roles as fashion plates with a mutual fondness for Gucci and Versace... Read the interview in full here

The year Wallpaper* launched, a 28-year-old Jonathan Ive was appointed as Apple’s design director. ‘Our goal is figuring out how we can bring meaning to objects,’ he told us a year later. He ticked that box. ‘Think of Apple as a product company whose primary goal is to make the very best products we can,’ he told us back in 2010. But six years is a long time in technology, and services, software, apps and interaction arguably play a far greater role in how we use our devices today. The intuitive elegance that has marked Ive’s designs is now harder to achieve...

The year Wallpaper* launched, a 28-year-old Jonathan Ive was appointed as Apple’s design director. ‘Our goal is figuring out how we can bring meaning to objects,’ he told us a year later. He ticked that box. ‘Think of Apple as a product company whose primary goal is to make the very best products we can,’ he told us back in 2010. But six years is a long time in technology, and services, software, apps and interaction arguably play a far greater role in how we use our devices today. The intuitive elegance that has marked Ive’s designs is now harder to achieve.

Hard but not impossible. ‘Far from being mutually exclusive, technology and craft are not at odds,’ he says. Apple knows this like no other, and that’s largely down to Ive’s status as a titan of exceptional user design. ‘Much like beauty and utility,’ he says, ‘[technology and craft are] all the more powerful in combination.’ Ive and Apple are another such supercharged blend

Most people steal things from hotels. Few try to steal an entire hotel. But that’s what happened to Ian Schrager. Just weeks after he opened the Edition in Waikiki, the owner of the building turned up in the middle of the night, changed the locks on the front doors and told the staff they worked for him now, not Schrager’s company. The episode neatly, if rather dramatically, sums up the man who has transformed hotels.

Over the past 30 years, Schrager has reinvented hotels and then reinvented them some more, and each time he has done so, his rivals, big and small, have stolen his ideas wholesale. At Morgans, the Royalton, the Paramount and the Hudson in New York and, along the way, the Delano in Miami, the Clift in San Francisco, the Mondrian in LA, and St Martin’s Lane and the Sanderson in London, he created the boutique hotel. It got the name not because it was small, but because it was curated with a strong attitude and aesthetic, like a fashion boutique.

The key ingredients are the lobby scene, the go-to bar, the must-book restaurant for guests and locals alike, the signature scents, the hot staff with clothes more expensive than the guests’, the cool nightclub, the sense of an urban resort, the CD collection and the baffling taps in the bathrooms. There’s scarcely a hotel on the planet whose design or service has not borrowed some or all of these elements. ‘They pickpocket my ideas,’ Schrager says. ‘I still get annoyed by it, especially when I see things that we laboured and agonised over that have now become standard. The bed with the low headboard with the light behind, it’s everywhere...’ Read the interview in full here

Airbnb confounds for many reasons, though the most obvious one is that its success is based on a business model that ignores one of the first lessons we learn at our mother’s knee: don’t talk to strangers. We can only imagine what the first few investor meetings in 2008 must have been like.

And yet, fast forward nine years and the website – essentially a match-making service between home-owners and visitors looking for an alternative to hotel rooms – has already hosted 123 million nights. It’s also in the midst of seeking additional funding, valuing the company at $30bn – making it the second highest-valued start-up in the US behind Uber.

And like Uber, Airbnb has become a poster-child for the sharing economy, that nebulous but extremely valuable intersection between commerce and human connection. It has recast the idea of privacy, security and personal space. And all because Joe Gebbia and Brian Chesky, two graduates from the Rhode Island School of Design, found a way to take the components of trust between people who had never met, and design for it. ‘We didn’t come up with anything new,’ says Gebbia, now chief product officer. ‘There were many websites like ours. Why did ours take off? Luck and timing played a part. The 2008 recession led people to consider new ways of earning supplemental income. But I believe the key difference was design...’ Read the interview in full here

Therme Vals was completed in 1996, the same year this magazine was founded. It was clearly a good year. Two decades on, Peter Zumthor’s genre-defining spa in the Swiss canton of Graubünden remains a place of pilgrimage for architecture enthusiasts the world over. And Zumthor is now one of the world’s most sought-after architects.

Zumthor is not your typical internationally-operating, Pritzker Prize-winning architect, even if there is such a thing. He has no offices in London, New York or Zurich, preferring instead to base himself in the tiny Swiss hamlet of Haldenstein, where he has lived and worked for more than 40 years. At his atelier, staff are not found glued to shiny Apple Macs but gathered around physical models of buildings – working prototypes lifted up on stilts to eye level – while beyond those models, breathtaking wraparound views stretch out across the Grisonian Rhine Valley. The practice is small, deliberately limited to around 30 people, making it a necessity to be very choosy about the projects it takes on. Which is what makes it really different.

Looking back over the last 20 years since Therme, the projects Zumthor has designed have been dictated not by commercial opportunity, but by where architecture can make a real difference to the human experience. Where architecture can bring joy, peace, insight or energy. You know you’re in a Zumthor building not because you notice any trademark shapes or materials, but because of how it makes you feel... Read the interview in full here

It is now the norm for fashion designers to dabble in other forms. Hedi Slimane, Rick Owens, Karl Lagerfeld and JW Anderson are all serious, serial dabblers. This is the age of the new polymath, the cross-disciplinary curator, the imperial taste-maker. But there is one designer who has gone much further; who, over the last 20 years, has relocated fashion, pulled it out of its self-referential loops and plugged it into a larger, more powerful network of ideas and influences.

Raf Simons originally trained in industrial and furniture design in Genk, Belgium – the country where he was born and raised and where his eponymous menswear line is based. After interning with Walter Van Beirendonck and then watching a Martin Margiela show in Paris, which Simons has described as nothing short of a revelation, he turned instead to fashion. He founded his own label in 1995.

That unconventional start explains Simons’ mould-breaking approach to designing clothing. ‘I always wanted to find other ways, explore other ways,’ he says. Focusing on menswear, Simons has subtly and insistently proposed new ways of dressing men. His radicalism has not only affected the way entire generations of men dress, but how generations of fashion designers create their clothes. The designs of youthful labels like Hood By Air or Off-White are tied up with ideas Simons has explored over the past 20 years... Read the interview in full here

Alessandro Michele’s Gucci is a harbinger of change in the fashion industry. In barely 18 months, his work has perceptibly moved goalposts and his impact is hard to overstate, certainly when it comes to recent fashion. Indeed, you’d have to dive back to the 1990s to find anything similar. Ironically, if you do so, you’ll find it was once again at Gucci that the status quo shifted, under the tenure of Tom Ford. Exactly 20 years apart, both used the Italian leather goods behemoth to ring in the changes, to provoke, challenge and ultimately seduce. Both have proved, within the space of mere seasons, to be the dominant fashion stories of their respective periods.

Michele and Ford’s visions for Gucci, on the surface, are polar opposites. Indeed, Michele’s obsession is with elaborating his surfaces, in homage to the Italiano eccentrico styles commonly associated with designers like Walter Albini, the interwar couturier Elsa Schiaparelli or the Milanese fashion editor Anna Piaggi. It stands in stark contrast to Ford’s midcentury modern-tinged minimalism, the sartorial equivalent of an Eames lounger, of lean tailoring and jersey evening dresses with insets of metal. Slick was the word most often used to describe Ford’s vision for Gucci, from the shiny polished catwalks of his biannual shows through to the glistening double-G insignias dripping from bags and belts. There’s nothing slick about what Michele does – it’s more sick, a mix of oddball references and strange proportions that have some beauty to them, to hamfistedly paraphrase Sir Francis Bacon... Read the interview in full here

Towering above his employees and most of his guests, with flowing locks and a beard as white as his linen trousers and moccasins, Brazilian mining magnate and modern-day Medici Bernardo Paz looks a little like God as he goes about his mission of building heaven on earth.

In Paz’s contemporary garden of Eden, Inhotim, every detail has been designed to reset the way visitors live their lives. The sprawling utopia, an hour from his home town of Belo Horizonte and designed as a perfect marriage of art, nature and architecture, is much more than a playground for an eccentric millionaire. It’s Paz’s gift to the world – a beautiful, peaceful place from a man whose name means peace. Mines, as the inhabitants of Paz’s home state of Minas Gerais know only too well, are a finite resource, and the Mineiros, as the locals are known, have seen their riches shipped off to the world for nearly two centuries – with all too little to show for it.

Paz has turned the concept of one-off extraction on its head, using the wealth accumulated from gouging iron ore from the mountains that surround Belo Horizonte to plant the seeds of a contemporary crop, one he believes will bear fruit ‘for a thousand years’. The profits – more than $250m – generated from shipping three million tonnes of iron ore a year to mills in Brazil and China, are ploughed into his dream.

‘I want to create a state of mind,’ he says. ‘The hardest thing is to change the way people see the world, but beauty changes people’s lives...’ Read the interview in full here

By the early 1990s, Kazuyo Sejima already had experience at Toyo Ito’s office, her own studio and a Young Architect of the Year award from the Japan Institute of Architects under her belt. But it was after setting up SANAA (with Ryue Nishizawa) in 1995 that her career really took off, upscaling to major cultural commissions which transformed her into an international go-to choice for mesmerisingly barely-there, ethereal architecture.

Her signature style of strong shapes and clean lines that at the same time appear flowing and delicate has helped define 21st-century Japanese architecture. It is all about the experience for Sejima, although priorities have shifted somewhat since her early days in practice. ‘Our designs are not driven by what you can do with architecture itself, but by an interest in the way people experience space as a relationship between programme, city and surrounding landscape,’ she says. ‘In the past, I would try to understand the overall character of a building’s environment and use this abstract idea to develop a design. Today, I try to create spaces that are more precisely adapted to the variable character of a neighbourhood...’ Read the interview in full here

There was a time when Japanese food meant exactly the same thing wherever you were, whatever the occasion and budget: sashimi, teppanyaki, sushi, teriyaki and tempura. In the 1990s, however, Nobuyuki Matsuhisa changed all that when he launched his deliriously inventive spin on classic Japanese tropes layered with nuanced South American influences, Peruvian specifically – yellowtail sashimi jalapeño and tempura eel, for instance.

From the start, a strong stylish streak has run through all of Matsuhisa’s projects. When the first Nobu opened in New York in 1994, he tapped David Rockwell for the interiors. ‘I explained to David the importance of the flow of the kitchen and the connection between the kitchen and the sushi bar. He understood both what I wanted and my style of cooking, and was able to translate my vision into a beautiful restaurant.’

It’s a formula that Matsuhisa has repeated over the years with great success. Within a few months of the first issue of Wallpaper*, he partnered with Robert De Niro, restaurateur Drew Nieporent, and Singaporean hotelier Christina Ong to open his first European outpost in London’s Metropolitan Hotel. Nobu London was the proverbial instant success. Every night, the deliberately austere dining room was mobbed by the city’s beau monde – every table swooning over the celebrated (and much imitated) black cod and miso. Within a year, it owned a Michelin star... Read the interview in full here

Illustration: Eoin Ryan

To paraphrase Sinatra, 1996 was a very good year. Wallpaper* was launched, Richard Geoffroy was promoted to chef de cave at Dom Pérignon and, very appropriately, that year produced an extraordinary vintage that, two decades on, is still talked about. ‘Normally, the great wines come from the fine sunny weather. It was the wind that year,’ Geoffroy explains. ‘It drove the dehydration of the grapes and concentrated the juices to produce something baffling, energised, constrained and infinitely youthful.’

On paper, Geoffroy’s credentials are impressive enough – born into a champagne-making family, he is a trained medical doctor and an influential oenologist. In person, he is articulate, smart, jovial, disciplined and passionate about the art of winemaking.

His extraordinary niceness makes it easy to overlook the fact that Geoffroy is an industry powerhouse. He says his relationship with Dom Pérignon is so intimate a line cannot be drawn. ‘We share the same sense of playfulness, completeness, complexity and serenity. Our fundamental core is one of harmony, which is expressed in the tension between winemaking and blending. But we are not flash or ego-driven...' Read the interview in full here

Co-founder of Google with Sergey Brin, CEO of Alphabet and the man behind Mountain View’s ongoing and relentless diversification into every single stratum of our tech-centric lives, Larry Page can lay claim to some serious data. Google is, of course, named for a number – a very big number – so it’s appropriate that any stats culled from the company’s day-to-day operations are suitably mind-boggling. Here are the facts and figures that prove Page will influence our intelligence for decades to come. The man behind the world’s biggest tech influencer conjures up serious stats. See them here...

It’s not a coincidence that, as Hussein Chalayan was presenting his first collections, the first issue of Wallpaper* was also taking shape in London. The designer has been vocal about the impact the magazine and the city had on him from the start. ‘For me, Wallpaper* was where all the different disciplines and facets of lifestyle merged,’ he says. ‘It was a publication that really gelled that together. My interests already included interiors and furniture, so I understood straight away its role in creating a synergy between fashion, interiors, food and travel. They were more isolated before, and I think the magazine is responsible for creating these bridges.’

London in those days ‘was about different creatives working together; there was a very distinct correlation between music and fashion’. Chalayan often collaborated with the singer Björk, who modelled in one of his early shows and famously wore a piece from the designer’s Airmail collection on the cover of her album, Post. ‘In terms of what inspired me, it was mostly music and cultural history...’ Read the interview in full here

Working with Ai Weiwei was one of the most exhilarating experiences of my life. Partly because we had barely a year to make a major exhibition at the RA, but mainly because he’s a profound, uncompromising and heroic individual whose humanity and humour are never far away.

Outside his studio in Caochangdi – a kind of artists’ village in Beijing – the street is lined with surveillance cameras, each one festooned with a red Chinese lantern by Weiwei, the most gentle of subversions. A bike was chained to the lamppost outside the main door – and it had a fresh bunch of flowers in its basket every day until he got his passport back. For most of the time we were working together, it seemed unlikely he would be able to come to London. I went to Beijing five times over the year and every trip I’d ask whether there was any change in attitude from the Chinese authorities. ‘I always remain optimistic, but every time I think the police might return my passport I am disappointed. Perhaps I am naive,’ he told me.

I remembered his exhibition at the 2013 Venice Biennale, soon after his release from prison, where his mother had come instead. Would she, I wondered, be able to come to London if he were unable to travel. ‘She’s too frail now,’ he said. ‘How about your son?’ I asked. ‘I know he’s only six, but maybe he would like to come.’ ‘My son hates London,’ he told me, rather devastatingly. ‘When I was imprisoned I didn’t want him to know details, so he was told Daddy is in London...’ Read the interview in full here

When it comes to supporting the arts, few patrons have made as big a name for themselves as the Miami-based real-estate developer Jorge M Pérez. Founder of the Related Group, part of the property powerhouse behind ambitious urban development projects such as New York’s Hudson Yards, Pérez has not only played a huge part in shaping the modern Miami skyline, but also left his mark on its cultural landscape as well.

In 2013, Pérez’s name became a talking point during the relocation of the Miami Art Museum to a swanky, waterfront home designed by Herzog & de Meuron. Along with its expanded, $220m building, the museum also unveiled a new name: the Pérez Art Museum Miami, an acknowledgement of the $40m donation from the billionaire. Although the naming was unorthodox, PAMM (as it’s affectionately known), has evolved from a municipal-level arts institution to a respected fixture in the international arts scene. Shows have included Ai Weiwei, Julio Le Parc, Jean-Michel Basquiat, the Brazilian artist Beatriz Milhazes and the New York-based Jamaican artist Nari Ward. Works donated by Pérez, largely by Latin American artists, are also on display... Read the interview in full here

In 1996, Elon Musk – and we realise how quaint this now sounds – did his first million dollar deal. The software company he started in 1995 with $28,000 of his father’s money picked up a $3 million investment and his remarkable career, from software to space via PayPal and sustainable propulsion, was off.

Along the way he has destroyed decades of received wisdom and borrowed business practices and, despite all that, his smartest rivals still think the world of him. As CCO of Aston Martin, Marek Reichman knows a thing or two about building beautiful, cutting-edge cars. It’s thanks to Musk, he says, ‘that our industry is now engaged in a radical rethink of how we create and deliver transportation’... Read the interview in full here

Illustration: Eoin Ryan

Rare now is the fashion brand that doesn’t do art in some way, does not sponsor, show, collaborate or co-mingle with artists and galleries. It can look like a crushing embrace. But one designer has been doing it for longer and with more sophistication and commitment than any other.

Miuccia Prada, who trained as a mime artist before joining the family operation, established the Fondazione Prada in 1993 and began collecting art; seriously and with serious intent. The Rem Koolhaas-designed New York Prada store, or Epicenter, which opened in 2001, was more gallery and performance space than glittering showcase for product. But Prada has been careful to compartmentalise the fashion brand and the Fondazione. It has its permanent curators, commissions as well as collects, and puts on museum-standard shows.

Last year, the Fondazione Prada campus, also designed by OMA, opened in Milan; twice the size of Renzo Piano’s new Whitney in New York and twice the fun. It has redefined what a private gallery can and should be. It’s an engaging new cultural hub for a city known more for commercial thrust and will be Prada’s real legacy... Read the interview in full here

Modesty almost forbids, but only almost. In fact, space doesn’t allow a complete list of our many advances and upshifts, our constant refinements and occasional reinventions over the last 20 years. Here’s just a few to be going on with: establishing the Handmade exhibition as the showcase of contemporary craft and design; creating the perfect pocket-sized travel guide; civilising e-commerce with the W* Store; curating a long-running series of artist-designed covers and back-page artist’s recipes; the encouragement and advancement of wave after wave of young designers and architects; and, of course, smuggling more dubious double entendres onto our covers than any magazine ever.

Victoria Beckham’s transformation from pop celebrity and tabloid icon to the force behind a covetable fashion line is an extraordinary one. Indeed, when the Spice Girls burst onto the cultural landscape in 1996, it would have seemed unlikely that 20 years later she would be presiding over a label now fêted for its sleek, restrained lines. 

But to hear Victoria Beckham tell it, she didn’t have ‘any grand expectations’ when making the transition from music to fashion. ‘I was just focused on creating clothes that I felt proud of and passionate about,’ says Beckham of launching her eponymous line in 2008. ‘The fact that the brand has since taken off in the way it has has been very humbling.’ 

Now, the label boasts its own handsome flagship store on London’s Dover Street, counts Net-A-Porter, Liberty and Barneys among its many stockists, and recorded a turnover of £34m in 2014. 

But the signals that Beckham had an affinity for design were there at the start. She was the stylish Spice Girl who stood out amid her flashier bandmates. As her and her husband David’s fame grew, they embraced their roles as fashion plates with a mutual fondness for Gucci and Versace.

'I always knew that fashion was something I wanted to pursue,’ says Beckham. ‘After the Spice Girls, I had time to think about what I wanted to do next. I was raising a young family and supporting David in his career. But while I was doing that I was laying the foundations for my fashion business, working with brands and learning everything I could.’ 

After testing the waters by collaborating with denim label Rock & Republic in 2004, Beckham’s own denim line followed in 2007. She then unveiled her Victoria Beckham brand in September 2008, winning rave reviews. American Vogue predicted it would sell ‘not on the power of [Beckham’s] name but the sophistication of [the dresses’] cut and fit.’ 

While the designer’s first collections – created, like her current output, with a team based at her Battersea atelier – put the focus on corseted, constructed dresses that hugged the body, in recent seasons her designs have conveyed a more understated polish, with softened, relaxed lines. Her autumn 2016 collection, in a palette of navy and dark green with flashes of orange, spotlights slip dresses with bubble hems, oversized wool coats in houndstooth check, polo-necks in optical stripes, and pointy-toed, flat monk shoes.

‘I think, like a lot of women, my style has changed as I’ve got older and grown in confidence,’ says Beckham. ‘I’ve loosened up, I want to wear pieces that are easy and effortless. I dress for myself these days, I’m not trying to impress anyone else.’ 

And as a household name, the designer has seen the nature of being a celebrity undergo seismic changes in her 20-year career. Indeed, Beckham no longer has to turn to the media to tell her story. Now, her Instagram feed, peppered with images of her collections, her four children and famous husband, and goofy Snapchat selfies, provides her customers – and fans – with a peek into the world of brand Beckham. ‘I still find it incredible to think I can reach millions of people across the world at the touch of my finger,’ she says.

The designer has also managed to make a bold statement with the arresting Dover Street flagship. Beckham says that she chose to work with architect Farshid Moussavi on the space, which is housed in an imposing Georgian building, as she was drawn to the architect’s ‘inspiring’ and ‘fresh’ perspective. 

Rendered in a palette of grey concrete, stainless steel and glass, with touches of pale gold and walnut to soften the lines, the store’s uncompromising mood is emblematic of Beckham’s own aesthetic evolution. ‘I wanted the retail spaces to be very distinctive, so I’m really thrilled that we were able to translate my design DNA into the store,’ she says. A second flagship has since been opened in Hong Kong, also designed by Moussavi. 

The gallery-like London space has also quite literally taken on that purpose, playing host to a number of British artists’ works. ‘Art is a real source of inspiration for me,’ says Beckham. ‘It could be something as simple as a colour or a pattern, but it can often provide a fresh influence, or [an] idea that pushes you onwards when you’re embarking on the creative design process each season.’ 

Last year, British artist Eddie Peake created an installation for the store, daubing its unblemished white walls with blue acrylic paint. And for a party to mark the store’s first anniversary last September, Martin Creed created a custom installation of his Work No 2497: Half the air in a given space. Creed crammed the store’s entrance with scores of white balloons, so that guests had to wade through them to enter the party. 

But despite earning recognition from the art and fashion worlds, Beckham isn’t resting on her laurels. She has now moved into beauty products, with a limited edition make-up collection with Estée Lauder that launched in September. The designer was particularly excited about dreaming up the packaging. ‘I went into the Estée Lauder archives and what we have created is inspired by their original 1950s packaging. If it’s in your handbag I want you to feel good about it,’ she says, describing the product design as ‘very cool, very sleek, luxurious and desirable’.

And while Beckham is enjoying this new challenge, she won’t stop there. ‘I’m looking forward to growing the brand even further – expanding into new markets, with new retail spaces. I’m very focused on building a label that’s going to be around for decades to come.’ Given that Beckham’s steely focus has already propelled her from pop product to a fashion authority, that wouldn’t be a surprise. 

Victoria Beckham is one of our 20 Game-Changers. Read about the other 19 here

As featured in the October 2016 issue of Wallpaper* (W*211)

INFORMATION

For more information, visit Victoria Beckham’s website

For her most recent collaboration, see Victoria Beckham and Breitling's watch collection.

Photography: Hyea W Kang

Mood board: Victoria Beckham took a more relaxed, easygoing mood this season, putting out minimal, comfortable looks.

Finishing touches: Pantsuits had bits of ribbon flowing in all directions, while matching cross-body bags completed a number of her free spirited ensembles.

Best in show: A deconstructed white shirt was sexy and elegant with a little bit of edge. A navy pantsuit looked put together, yet easy.

INFORMATION

Photography: Jason Lloyd-Evans

Black looks: In the new season’s monochrome, Louis Vuitton, Jil Sander, and Kenzo (pictured clockwise from left) opted for sleek, jet-black invitations. Louis Vuitton’s was debossed with its iconic monogram pattern; Jil Sander sent a soft, matte invitation with the event details embossed in a contrasting shiny black; while Kenzo’s came in the form of a mock concert ticket

Antonio Marras: Like a paper matryoshka doll, the ever-playful invitation from Antonio Marras was a decidedly meta affair – an illustrated paper envelope within an envelope within an envelope and so forth eventually revealed show details

Dries Van Noten: London-based illustrator Gill Button hand-painted no less than 1,200 invitations for Dries Van Noten’s A/W womenswear show after being discovered by the Belgian designer on Instagram. The collection – and invitations – nod to Italian heiress and muse Luisa Casati

Pattern power: Fashion powerhouses Salvatore Ferragamo, Versace and Bally went big and bold for their womenswear outings in Milan, commanding our attention with a graphic array of patterned invitations

Iris van Herpen: On the other end of the spectrum, Dutch designer Iris van Herpen aroused our curiosity with a tiny, pea-sized glass vessel. With careful tinkering we were able to coax the presentation details out, printed inside on a thin, plastic tape

Dior Homme: This season, creative director Kris Van Assche dipped into Dior’s floral archive as well as a black-and-red plaid that wouldn’t go amiss on the hip skater crowd, who were foreshadowed on his poster invitation

Anya Hindmarch: The English designer announced her London womenswear show with a diabolically difficult, all-silver riff on a Rubik’s cube (a few frustrating/gratifying hours were admittedly spent attempting to solve it). Set designer Stuart Nunn later brought this motif to life on the runway, creating a backdrop of illuminated surfaces based on 8-bit graphics and Rubik’s cubes, of course

Gucci: We opened Gucci’s mysterious invitation box for its menswear show with baited breath. Inside, it revealed a striking trio of scientific glass slides each adorned with its own specimen from Alessandro Michele’s Gucci garden, including a snake and bumblebee (a nod to European nobility and Rome, where the Italian house is based and also where the insect is carved into buildings all over the city)

Monochrome medley: It was a simple matter of black and white for Salvatore Ferragamo, Margaret Howell, Neil Barrett and Aquazzura, who all posted boldly monochromatic invitations to our letterbox

Prada: As ever, the guarded Miuccia Prada revealed nothing ahead of her Milan show. Instead, we were left tantalised by an off-white paper booklet with a concertina binding, slipped in a ghostly, semi-translucent acetate envelope

Metal heads: A metallic trend emerged among this season’s invitations, including a delicate, gold foil iteration for Palm Angels’ menswear show (left) and a creased, silver foil backed by cardboard for jewellery label Ambush

Paul Smith: Keen-eyed, longtime followers of the eponymous British designer might have recognised the glossy, red apple motif that appeared on his womenswear invitations from London’s salon and Paris’ runway show. Sir Smith, in fact, had first used it in 1982 and his recent collection took a bite out of his past endeavours

Art and soul: The Technicolor brushstrokes were flying as Paul Smith, Marques’Almeida, Céline (poured tinted rubber technically), and Hermès all jumped on a painterly trend for their respective show invitations this season

Acne Studios: There was no telling what to expect from Acne Studios’ show thanks to its poster invitation, illustrated with two wildly different scenes. Were we in for a psychedelic romp in Paris or something more darkly seductive?

Rick Owens: The American designer announced both of his A/W Paris shows on matching, soft leather invitations

Givenchy: Riccardo Tisci heralded his show with a black-and-white poster pin-up, painted over with a powder pink hue

Material matters: Luxurious swathes of suede and felt won out many of the invitations this season, including (pictured, from top) Victoria Beckham, Marni, and Jimmy Choo

3.1 Phillip Lim: It was only fitting that the American designer would send out a boxed bamboo invitation with the show details printed inside on a glossy, lacquer-red duplex card, framed with a black border. As it turned out, his A/W outing was infused with plenty of references that included Japanese craft and kimonos

Fendi: The Italian house announced itself – quite literally – with a white duplex card featuring its name playfully adorned in a lemon yellow felt inside a comic speech bubble

1205: The elusive Paula Gerbase gave nothing away ahead of her menswear debut in London thanks to her minimalist acetate invitation

Zest sellers: Several houses heralded their shows with a bold tangerine or vivid orange, including (clockwise, from top left) Marques'Almeida's paint-streaked offering; MSGM's fabric-pressed card; Miu Miu's soft suede invitation; and Carven's graphic poster

Edun: The label adorned its womenswear invitation, the runway and closing looks of the show with a design from Ethiopian Grammar by artist Wosene Worke Kosrof. The Ethiopian sculptor/painter is best known for his interpretations of Aramaic script; here, he conjured a pastiche of phrases like 'mother love' and blended it with the Amharic alphabet on duplex card

Scene setting: Presented under the painted fresco ceilings of what was previously Cipriani Wall Street in the 1921 Cunard Building, Victoria Beckham transformed her regular show venue with tastefully checkered carpet - a precursor to the myriad of graphic prints that would appear in her latest collection.

Sound bite: In a statement included in her show notes, Beckham said, ‘This collection is a statement of the continuing evolution of my personal style and design ethos. I set out to refine key wardrobe pieces in new proportions developed from my signature silhouettes, techniques and fabrications.’

Mood board: The label's signature long-line silhouette was alive in full force, this time with softly boned bustiers, seductive cut-outs and skinny shoulder-strapped dresses mingling with balloon skirts, crisp button down shirts and oversized jackets for a boy meets girl look. Inspired print combinations, ranging from houndstooth, gingham, diamond jacquard and stripes, also made the collection feel as fresh and desirable as ever

INFORMATION

Photography: Jason Lloyd-Evans

Mood board: The Victoria Beckham woman might not strike you as a sporty type, but it was the focus on an ease of wear and carefree mobility that directed the designer's S/S 2016 collection. Full, billowing silhouettes such as drop-waisted skirts and below-the-knee culottes, along with pops of colour along necklines, gave the collection a jaunty, yet always elegant feel.

Finishing touches: Calling it 'a new approach that is fresh and liberating' in the collection's opening statement, Beckham drew inspiration from urban surf scenes for the season. Hooded zipped up tops (in leather of course), sports jackets (in silk) and clingy knitted dresses with seams accentuating the contours of the body brought new meaning to the term 'sports luxe'. An oversized handbag shape known as the 'half moon' - an elevated, messenger style almost - was also introduced, loosely slung over her models' shoulders.

Best in show: There was a superb mix of prints - boisterous picnic checks inserted between panels of white, florals interjected with plaids - that alternated with a restrained, art-like placement for maximum impact.

INFORMATION

Photography: Jason Lloyd-Evans

Mood board: Victoria Beckham's continued ride with simplified - but not simplistic - sportswear cut with a cool edge, makes her time, and again, one of our favourite shows in New York.

Best in show: One of the most exceptional pieces - a black waffle knit sweater with brilliant bell-sleeves - was also the one that hogged the least limelight. That item's subtlety summed up the show's easy grace, not to mention its covetable practicality.

Scene setting: It's hard to stay entirely focused at the runway when your setting is as charming as New York's Cunard Building in the southern most tip of Manhattan. The decorative ceilings were positively spellbinding. But then so were the clothes.

Photography: Jason Lloyd-Evans

Fashion week, nowadays, is about much more than just the collections. Showmanship is the name of the game, and in the meticulously executed sartorial extravaganzas, the sound space is an element that no producer or designer can afford to overlook. Music royalty - past, present and future - is enlisted to ensure a full assault on the senses. Here, we bring you New York Fashion Week's catwalk mega-mix from the S/S 2015 womenswear collections.

SATURDAY 06/09

Lacoste
'All Under One Roof Raving' by Jamie XX; 'Goodies (Remix)' by Kingdom; 'Ooops! (Oh My) (Tweet Oops re-edit)' by Hudson Mohawke; 'Sexual Eruption (Instrumental)' by Snoop Dogg; 'Stay (Marius Horsturz Edit)' by Rihanna
Music production: Michel Gaubert

Alexander Wang
'Eject Fast Forward' by Click Click; 'God Created The Beat' by Matrixxman; 'Boneless' by Starsweeper; 'Biggie Bounce' by Diplo; 'Like This' by Linkoban; 'Bend Ova' by Lil Jon
Music production: Frédéric Sanchez

Altuzarra
'Rosemary's Baby Main Theme' by Krzysztof Komeda; 'Suspiria' by Goblin; 'Suspiria (Rvng Prsnts Mx5 Featuring Justine D'; '14 Water Drums' by Curd Duca

SUNDAY 07/09

Victoria Beckham
'New Dorp. New York' by SBTRKT; 'Lights' by Sohn
Music production: Frédéric Sanchez

MONDAY 08/09

3.1 Phillip Lim
'Ambush' by Last Japan; 'All I Ever Need' by Caribou; 'Where I Belong' by Gui Boratto; 'Can't Do Without You' by Caribou
Music production: Sebastien Perrin

Donna Karan
'Suvelo (Cuban Mix)' by Tribal Target; 'Sin Plomo' by Nature Groove; 'She' by Alice Smith
Music production: Kevin Edwards & Kris Bones

Rag & Bone
Original soundtrack by Thom Yorke and Nigel Godrich

TUESDAY 09/09

Marc by Marc Jacobs
'The Blue Danube' by Johanne Strauss II; 'My House' by Chuck Roberts; 'Hackney Parrot (Special Request VIP)' by Tessela; 'Danube Love' by Franz Lehar; 'GT Turbo' by Mella Dee; '3am Eternal (Blue Danube Orbital Mix)' by KLF; 'Radio Babylon' by Meat Beat Manifesto

Diesel Black Gold
'Metal on Metal (Stereo Difference) from Trans Europe Express' by Kraftwerk; 'Voices' by Neon; 'Dub In My Eyes' by Depeche Mode; 'We Are The Axis (Daniel Avery Remix)' by The Asphodells; 'Shake "Nickel Ride"' by Cowboy Rhythmbox
Music production: Michel Gaubert

WEDNESDAY 10/09

Michael Kors
'Be My Baby' by Linda Ronstadt; 'Be My Baby' by The Ronettes; 'Be My Baby (Orchestral)' by Thomas Roussel; 'Then He Kissed Me (Orchestral)' by Thomas Roussel 
Music production: Michel Gaubert

Boss
'How Did The Affair End?' by In Flagranti; 'Romeo & Juliet' by Abel Korzeniowski; 'Factory Floor' by How You Say; 'Sun Position' by The Persuader; 'The Four Seasons' by Vivaldi
Music production: John Gosling & Steve Mackey

Reed Krakoff
Original soundtrack by Sebring Revolution

Proenza Schouler
'Amarant 8' by Scanner; 'Procrastination' by Demdike Stare; 'Amarant 2' by Scanner
Music production: Michel Gaubert

THURSDAY 11/09

Ralph Lauren
'Lioness In Love' by The Afrika Connection; 'The Here And After' by Jun Miyake; 'Soleil Chaleur (Soleil + Chaleur + Toi + Moi)' by Ariane Moffatt; 'Did We Live Too Fast' by Got A Girl; 'Mama' by Khadja Nin

Calvin Klein Collection
'Camouflage' by Scanner; 'Kendo For Yukio Mishima' by Matmos; 'Moss Garden' by David Bowie; 'Some Are' by David Bowie; 'Dune' by Chloe
Music production: Frédéric Sanchez

Marc Jacobs
'Etude 1' by Nadia Sirota; 'Etude 1A' by Nadia Sirota; 'Computer Voice Narration' 
Music production: Steve Mackey

For several seasons now, we have ended up saying the exact same thing about Victoria Beckham: that her fashion collection is shockingly good and she is consistently one of the most interesting shows in New York. Having almost opened the doors on her first boutique in London, Beckham's business is growing briskly and with it, her fashion vision continues to cohere in an ever stronger, more powerful and desirable way. For spring she kept the ideas simple, but developed them to the max - a feat that few other designers who show in New York managed to do. Key to the collection were the long, lean shapes, of which the slit, three-quarter length skirt was the star performer. Beckham showed these in sturdy earthy linens as well as in stretchy vertical pleat knits and paired them with cropped jackets that sat just at the tip of their high waistbands. The silhouette was sharp and modern and made for an excellent canvas for the designers' play on graphic stripes and her new deep footbed velvet platforms - Beckham's official launch into footwear.

Victoria Beckham is on our It-list. Not only was the former pop princess a recent headlining judge in Wallpaper's Design Awards issue, but she continues to be on a winning streak with her fashion career. Crucial to her formula for success is an uncanny knack for creating fashion forward clothes that are covetable for the advanced dresser and yet also ingestible to the broader masses. Though dripping in new details, these are clothes that are simple in their shape and intrinsically wearable. Long buttonless coats or lean raw edged wrap dresses, for example, were held together with just a simple gold chain, where the flash of warm metal heated up a normally very simple look. Beckham's big news this season was in construction, but she did it subtly, cutting in a curtain of pleats in the back of a wool coat, or onto the front of a short skirt. The pleating was outstanding as a new decorative device especially at night when a glistening gunmetal floor-length evening skirt was paired with a cosy black funnel neck sweater. A clear example of a perfect winter ensemble designed by a woman, with a woman in mind.