CATEGORIES

Blonde Ambition - A new iteration of Gucci's beloved 'Blondie' bag fuses effortless Seventies insouciance with crisp modernity

Recently reimagined by creative director Sabato De Sarno as part of his Cruise 2025 collection, Gucci’s ‘Blondie’ bag, first launched in 1971, centres around a rounded version of the brand’s historic interlocking-G symbol. Now one of fashion’s most recognisable motifs, it remains on De Sarno’s interpretation, which is designed to recall the original’s effortless insouciance and the heady, liberated spirit of the 1970s.

Role Models - Elmgreen & Dragset's subversive take on the classical form at Paris' Musée d'Orsay explores contemporary masculinities in a heteronormative world

As Elmgreen & Dragset, Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset bring a smart subversion to their large-scale installations. Over the last three decades, they have taken a sideways look at social and political systems by recontextualising mainstream motifs: works have included a full-scale replica of a Prada boutique in the Texan desert and a vast, vertical swimming pool, now installed in Hong Kong.

Flask Force - A limited-edition perfume collaboration between two Spanish craft masters says it with flowers

Loewe and Lladró are two brands with a lot in common. They're both Spanish, they're both born out of an obsessive desire to master a particular material (Loewe with leather and Lladró with porcelain), and they're both exemplars of luxury design. So it seems fitting, then, that the two maisons have finally come together for an exceptional collaboration, launching this autumn: a limited-edition run of porcelain flask toppers for three of Loewe Perfumes' classic scents.

Bloom Service - A flower-shaped brutalist beauty in Geneva gets a refresh

Tucked between the extensive campus of Geneva's University Hospital and a huddle of associated medical institutions, laboratories and surgeries, the Avenue de la Roseraie is trod by few casual visitors to the Swiss city. And yet here - out of sight in a small car park is an extraordinary structure that, situated elsewhere, would surely draw the attention of architectural students like bees to a nectar-rich flower. Horticulturalists, too, perhaps, for whom a building nicknamed La Tulipe might well incite curiosity.

Second Nature -A remodelled museum in Lisbon, by Kengo Kuma & Associates, meshes Japanese and Portuguese influences to create a space that sits in harmony with its surroundings

The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation's complex in Lisbon has been one of the city's best-loved landmarks since it opened in the 1960s. The foundation aims to improve quality of life through art, charity, science and education, and its Lisbon campus encompasses a main office, library, scientific research centre and contemporary art museum, Centro de Arte Moderna (CAM), which reopens this month following an extensive four-year renovation by Japanese studio Kengo Kuma & Associates. Designed in collaboration with landscape architect Vladimir Djurovic, the update cleverly reconfigures the space and extends the foundation's gardens to craft a more cohesive relationship between the existing structures.

Cane and Able- Fusing traditional craftsmanship with contemporary vision, design studio Ibuku demonstrates the versatility of bamboo at a serene Bali villa

Over the last decade, Bali-based studio Ibuku, headed up by designer Elora Hardy, has become a leading expert in bamboo architecture, its output encompassing everything from a traditional Sumbanese house and a yoga and meditation space to playful treehouses and a riverside café at an eco-friendly jungle retreat in Ubud. In 2021, the studio completed The Arc sports hall at the Green School in Bali (founded by Elora's father, designer John Hardy). Made from a series of arches spanning an impressive 19m, it was a pioneering feat of bamboo engineering.

Guest Editor Marcio Kogan - Marcio Kogan has been prolific since setting up his namesake studio in São Paulo in 1978 (it was renamed Studio MK27 at the turn of the century).

Marcio Kogan has been prolific since setting up his namesake studio in São Paulo in 1978 (it was renamed Studio MK27 at the turn of the century). The 72-year-old architect has since become synonymous with contemporary Brazilian chic, offering a sumptuous blend of raw, textured materials; clean geometric forms; effortless functionality; vernacular design features; and a deep knowledge and appreciation of the rich, tropical modernist architecture legacy of his home country.

DREAM TEAM

A rewatching of a seminal film laid the foundation for JW Anderson's latest collection, a fantastical collaboration with artist Christiane Kubrick

Commercial artists

We conjure up public spaces that look and feel good, taking our design cues from the domestic landscape

LINES OF BEAUTY

Massimo Giorgetti's new rug collection for CC-Tapis takes Milan's 1960s metro system as a departure point

Cloud pleaser

Blue-sky thinking elevates a purpose-built gallery for the Froehlich Foundation's art collection near Stuttgar

MIAMI VOICE

Artist Rachel Feinstein articulates the collision of extremes that define her hometown in a major new exhibition

Pas de deux

Choreographer Wayne McGregor on turning a post-apocalyptic trilogy by Margaret Atwood into a three-act ballet in collaboration with composer Max Richter

STEP CHANGE

It's a gloomy day in April and the designer Jony Ive is in Milan.

WATCH THIS SPACE

A new book takes a deep dive into the history of an innovative Rolex timepiece

GOLDEN TOUCH

Real estate venture Ray's Seagram Building HQ in New York is a homage to corporate modernism

METAL WINNERS

Chanel shows its sporting colours with a new high jewellery collection inspired by its founder's athletic aesthetic

Artistic licence

Remy Savage shakes up the world of cocktail-making at his Bauhaus-inspired bar enterprise in east London

Waking moments

Design makes a welcome return to the Dakar Biennale, sounding out a clarion call to Africa's new creative generation

Guiding Light - Designer Joe Armitage follows his grandfather's footsteps in India, reissuing his elegant midcentury lamp and creating a new chandelier for Nilufar Gallery

For some of us, family inheritances I tend to be burdensome, taking up space, emotionally and physically, in both our minds and attics. For the London-based designer and architect Joe Armitage, however, a family heirloom has taken him somewhere lighter and brighter, across generations and continents, and into the path of Le Corbusier. This is the story of a lamp designed by Edward Armitage in India 72 years ago, which has today been expanded into a collection of lights by his grandson Joe.

POLE POSITION

A compact Melbourne house with a small footprint is big on efficiency and experimentation

URBAN OASIS

At an art-filled Mexico City residence, New York designer Giancarlo Valle has put his own spin on the country's traditional craft heritage

WARM FRONT

Designer Clive Lonstein elevates his carefully curated Manhattan home with rich textures and fabrics

BALCONY SCENE

A Brazilian island hotel offers a unique approach to the alfresco experience

ENSEMBLE CAST

How architect Anne Holtrop is leaving his mark on the Middle East

Survival mode

A new show looks at preparing for a post-apocalyptic landscape (and other catastrophes)

Wild beauties

The latest high jewellery collections are dripping with drama, fantasy and flamboyance, drawing on a wealth of influences, from a Chopin composition and César Ritz to crocodiles and colour refraction

GUEST EDITOR LAILA GOHAR

Laila Gohar works wonders with food. So it's a surprise to hear her say that her work is not really about food at all, but rather about human behaviour. Born in 1988 and raised in Cairo, Egypt, Gohar moved to the States in 2009, working in restaurant kitchens and dipping a tentative toe into food journalism, before success emerged thanks to her catering business Sunday Supper, which captured the attention of New York's art and fashion crowds. Commissions to cater events for the likes of Prada, Hermès and Gucci quickly turned into column inches as word got out about her langoustine towers, artichoke swans, and busts made from butter.

GUEST EDITOR ST.VINCENT

Since the release of her 2007 debut album, Marry Me, the Texan-born, guitar-shredding St. Vincent has continued to reinvent herself, dabbling in synth-pop, hard rock and everything in between. Like Bowie before her, she’s played with, and prodded at, the idea of persona. For the release of 2017’s Masseduction a time she calls her dominatrix at the mental institution’ era she dressed only in latex, insisting journalists interview her decidedly prickly) alter-ego inside a neon pink box. During 2021's Daddy’s Home, she was a louche, 1970s gangster, in a flared two-piece and blonde bob wig. And for mockumentary The Nowhere Inn, directed by Sleater-Kinney’s Carrie Brownstein, she portrayed a heightened and hideous) self-obsessed version of herself. It wasn’t great for my career, she notes, dryly. Wondering who St. Vincent would become next and who she really is has all been part of the game. But in 2024, that changed. Her eighth album, All Born Screaming, is a ferocious exploration of what it is to be alive; the sound heavier, the visuals dark and uncanny. She has ditched the costume and character and is, perhaps for the first time, just Annie Clark. Seventeen years into her career, we invite a truly shapeshifting artist to take the reins of Wallpaper” as guest editor to understand her multidisciplinary creative process, what fuels her fire, and where this bizarre road might take St. Vincent next.

DESIGN DIRECTORY - BATHROOMS

The hottest trends, from retrofuturistic scene-setting and sunset moods to sculptural curves and shadowy corners