Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2024 i Architectural Digest

Alexis Tompkins, cofounder of the San Francisco design firm Chroma, is no stranger to color, having conjured some of the West Coast’s boldest rooms in recent memory. But no palette, in her eyes, can compete with Mother Nature’s. So when the 2021 AD New American Voices honoree went hunting for a family home after years in a third-level apartment, “it was my dream to have some outdoor space. A little patch of green is such a luxury in a city.” Creating the oasis she was envisioning, however, would require some elbow grease, improvisation, and collaboration. After losing several bidding wars on historic homes in the Mission District, Tompkins and her husband, tech entrepreneur and musician Ian Mesey, decided to expand their parameters. “I warned our real estate agent that we…

Partway through a long journey, bed can start to feel like the most appealing destination of all. Louis Vuitton must have known this when, in 1865—a little over a decade after selling his namesake brand’s first travel trunk—he made a version prepacked with a collapsible cot. With its metal frame and cotton mattress, the piece offered an elevated take on the camp beds used by military personnel. The overall design was innovative enough to warrant Vuitton’s son, Georges, filing a patent for it in 1885 and helping to arrange its exhibition at the 1889 Paris Exposition—the world’s fair that occasioned the building of the Eiffel Tower. Now there’s a Malle Lit (or Bed Trunk) for the adventurer of today. This time around the bed has a segmented base consisting of…

This summer, love is in the air at Long Island’s Parrish Art Museum, where four concurrent solo shows celebrate the work of two married duos: Brian Donnelly (a.k.a. KAWS) and Julia Chiang along with Eddie Martinez and Sam Moyer. But so too is friendly competition. As part of her installation, Moyer has included four backgammon sets made from the same stone scraps that might otherwise find their way into her paintings and sculptures. “I never got into playing, but I’ve always loved the boards,” she reflects on the origin of the ongoing series, started in 2020. “The cross-pollination of art objects and functional objects—the stone holding its role as decorative and utilitarian simultaneously—is a big theme in my work.” The games will be sold after the closing of the exhibition,…

“Creating a space where I can recharge and be grounded is super important.”—Aurora James “Being on the internet at 11 p.m., searching for a weird light, or something, is like my catnip.”…

“The garden is that Beatrix Potter paradise of my childhood fantasies.”—Plum Sykes “One of my favorite roses is Savoy Hotel, a strong shrub with waxy green leaves and pink blooms the size of tennis balls.”…

“I had been longing for a base in which to curate all the things I have collected while filming in far-flung locations over the years,” says Kapoor. One of Bollywood’s most celebrated actors, Sonam Kapoor is also a great patron of Indian design and decorative arts, as evidenced in the succession of interiors she has created for herself over the last several years. Whether in London or now in Mumbai, these homes embody her innate sense of craftsmanship and detail. “This house represents a new chapter for me, as a woman, a collector—and a mother,” Kapoor declares of the new place, which she shares with her husband, entrepreneur Anand Ahuja, and their toddler son, Vayu. Having spent years in London, it was a deep-breath moment to make the decision…

“This house is really a snapshot of what’s going on in my life in this moment, a snapshot of time.”—Aurora James The question I am asked most often is: How does AD find the projects it publishes? Our small but mighty team of editors and contributors stays in touch with a global network of architects, interior designers, and landscape designers, tirelessly tracking projects (often for years) before they land in the pages of Architectural Digest. But on an even more personal note, the editors pursue fascinating people—non-design professionals—we are fortunate to be acquainted with. I am endlessly intrigued by how those with creative and artistic vision craft their own environments, and I am not shy about snooping a bit! I have known Aurora James, the cover star of our September…

SPUR OF THE MOMENT Western style wins over a new generation of cowboys and -girls; shown are looks from Louis Vuitton Men’s fall-winter 2024 show AGE OF AQUARIUS Haute hippie vibes and glamorous 1970s throwbacks cast their spell; shown are looks from Ulla Johnson’s autumn-winter 2024 show HIGHLAND FLING Tartan touches and country keepsakes celebrate the culture and craft of Scotland; shown are looks from Dior’s Cruise 2025 show in the gardens of Drummond Castle…

Old Hollywood movies, blue-and-white porcelain, Navajo rugs, Georgian antiques—Ralph Lauren’s interests are as wide-ranging as they are refined. But nothing gets his engine revving quite like cars. For the past five decades, the American fashion legend has amassed a trove of some of the world’s most coveted vehicles, among them 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Gullwing and 1938 Bugatti Type 57SC Atlantic coupes. “I have always loved machines that are the product of someone taking their passion for building and using it to create beauty,” he tells AD, reflecting on the functional that forms a philosophical through line, one model to the next. “The purposefulness with which the cars I own were created—the engine, the mechanics—the whole spirit is exciting.” That passion has now greased the gears of Ralph Lauren Home’s…

Bowie House, Auberge Resorts Collection FORT WORTH Ranch water meets refined luxury at this Lone Star State hot spot, designed by BOKA Powell. Equestrian elements (think rivet details, leather surfaces, hammered floorboards) nod to cowboy culture while contemporary art from the collection of owner Jo Ellard celebrates the creative legacy of the surrounding Cultural District. From $609 per night; aubergeresorts.com Casa Monti ROME AD100 maximalist Laura Gonzalez has put a fresh, colorful spin on dolce vita glamour at this boutique gem (the Italian cousin of La Fantaisie in Paris). Bold hues, punchy patterns, and groovy lines converge in its bohemian rooms. For the ultimate aperitivo, head to the rooftop bar. From $482 per night; casamontiroma.com The Emory LONDON This all-suite marvel from Maybourne—the group that brought us Claridge’s, The Connaught,…

“The mural has such depth, color, and richness. I get lost in it,” Jana Bezdek muses. If all the world’s a stage, as Shakespeare wrote, then AD100 designer Pamela Shamshiri and her client Jana Bezdek have conjured the ultimate set piece, a sumptuous, seductive Greenwich Village brownstone reimagined to court the muse of theater—and of life. Brimming with dazzling decorative flourishes, the house feels like a corrective to the current vogue for hushed, monochromatic interiors that find luxury in abstention. It’s a place where extraordinary furnishings, alluring colors, and rapturous artworks coalesce in a domestic temple of beauty dedicated to the goddesses of magic, mystery, and creative invention. “I see the house as an extension of my life in the theater and my love for the performing arts,” says Bezdek,…

Dating back hundreds or thousands of years, old-growth trees are more than just specimens of majesty and mystery. “Untouched forests are doing the heavy lifting in terms of carbon sequestration,” explains the celebrated fine art photographer Mitch Epstein, reflecting on the genesis of his latest series. “What wilderness we have left deserves to be protected, but we also have to take stock of the fact that it is doing an enormous job.” Shot using an 8 x 10 camera, the project took Epstein off the beaten path in every sense, kayaking to capture the bald cypresses of North Carolina’s Black River or climbing to altitudes above the treeline of California’s Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest. (Shown is a Bigleaf maple in Washington’s Olympic National Park.) Along the way, he also immersed…

Many children might have been frightened by the 17th-century Capuchin crypt in Rome, where the walls are encrusted with skeletal remains. But for a young Elsa Peretti, visits to the macabre site would ignite one of her lifelong fascinations: bones. Over the decades the Italian model turned sculptor and jewelry designer would collect them as objects of intrigue. “Her creativity was always pushed by her curiosity,” explains Nando and Elsa Peretti Foundation board member Stefano Palumbo. After Peretti sculpted her famous bone cuff in the 1970s, she crafted crystal candlesticks with Tiffany & Co., introduced in 1980, from a similar inspiration. The shape, something like an elegantly twisted femur, debuted in sterling silver and terra-cotta two years later and then, in 1986, in magnolia wood. Today, Tiffany still produces the…

This story starts with Pierre Paulin’s 1969 Multimo sofa, a sinuous form with petal-like backrests. “We wanted to secure that piece—period,” says one young collector, explaining how he found his way to New York’s Demisch Danant gallery. At the time, he was in the early stages of furnishing his family’s new Brooklyn home, a landmark 1846 town house by Richard Upjohn, the architect of Trinity Church in Lower Manhattan. Although said shopper had grown up around 18th-century American antiques, he was developing a taste for postwar French design. When he learned that cofounder Suzanne Demisch took on the occasional interiors job, a light bulb went off. Since founding their eponymous gallery in 2005, Demisch and her Paris-based partner, Stéphane Danant, have been introducing American audiences to French titans like Paulin,…

When Banana Republic tapped Noa Santos to refresh its Lower Manhattan flagship, the first thing he did was dig into the archives. “Banana has always been meant to feel transporting,” says the designer, founder of Nainoa, who recalls poring over hand-drawn catalogs and vintage photography. Set in the SoHo–Cast Iron Historic District, the store needed to stir both wanderlust and pride of place. “These properties should test the boundaries of imagination.” Unveiled this past summer, the transformation—shepherded by Gap Inc. creative director Zac Posen—does just that. Layout tweaks foster curiosity, with uninterrupted sight lines and sequences of compression and expansion that inject intimate scale. Hearths and niches accentuate a residential feel while materials celebrate a global worldview—from exposed aggregate of the raw concrete flooring to the natural agave fibers of…