Innholdsfortegnelse for December 2023 i Wallpaper

Boundary-pushing brand To’ak produces the world’s most expensive chocolate (prices can cost upwards of $200 for a single 50g bar). Founded in Ecuador in 2013, and dedicated to handcrafting high quality, single-origin dark chocolate using rare Ecuadorian Nacional cacao beans, the chocolate comes in beautiful, minimalistic packaging. We were particularly smitten with the brand’s latest collection, Alchemy, which aims to spotlight indigenous, ancient and endangered ingredients from four of the world’s most unique ecosystems, using the likes of rainforest nuts, Andean mint, tucupi, amaranth and Amazonian ants to complement its refined bars. A group of young Ecuadorian artists were selected to design the packaging for the collection, with each cover evoking the nature of the contents, from the turtle symbol of the Galàpagos Islands to the ants carrying around squares…

British-Ghanaian fashion designer Ozwald Boateng has reinterpreted some classic pieces by Italian furniture brand Poltrona Frau, adorning them with some of his distinctive patterns that reference traditional Ghanaian Kente cloth. Boateng enriched the pieces, including the ‘Chester’ sofa and ‘Vanity Fair’ chair, by embossing them with his signature ‘Tribal’ print in Frau leather, in a vibrant series of shades that reflect the designer’s work, including red, yellow, purple, blue, green and black. Although effortless in appearance, the embossed elements were a key step forward for Poltrona Frau’s manufacturing approach. ‘Applying Ozwald’s patterns on the leather was an important technological challenge,’ says Poltrona Frau CEO, Nicola Coropulis. ‘In the furniture sector today, no one uses the embossing technique that we have used. He has pushed us to work on the leather…

‘Monolithic yet sensual and sensorial’ is how Vincent Van Duysen, the Belgian master of minimalism, describes his latest collection of stone furniture, designed in collaboration with Mexican materials brand Grupo Arca. Titled ‘Gravitas’, the collection, which will be unveiled during Design Miami in December, comprises 18 elements ranging from tables and chairs to a library stand. Citing Isamu Noguchi as a primary inspiration, Van Duysen says, ‘I really admire the contemporary artists who work with natural stone in a very expressionist, evocative and emotionally sensual way.’ He also looked to classical Greek, Roman and Egyptian designs. ‘I wanted the pieces I designed for Arca to be very archetypal, to lean into primary forms from the past.’ The collection features four stones – a Carrara marble and a rust-coloured porphyry stone,…

Michael Bennett might not be a household name in the design world, but in the realm of American football, he is as big as it gets. He played an incredible 11 seasons with the likes of the Dallas Cowboys, Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Philadelphia Eagles, as well as winning the Super Bowl with the Seattle Seahawks in 2014, before retiring from the sport in 2020. A prominent anti-racist campaigner, who frequently spoke out against the injustices of the sport, Bennett’s many efforts included setting up an endowment at the Rhode Island School of Design in 2021 to enable more people of colour to get into design. ‘In some ways, design has always been a part of my life,’ says Bennett, who graduated from the University of Hawaii and the Heritage…

A family in search of a home combining both the functionality and robustness needed in daily life, as well as the comfort, escape and ambition of a weekend retreat, found the perfect solution in this newly built residence by local architect Mohamed Amine Siana. Located in one of Casablanca’s up-and-coming southern neighbourhoods, it aims to harness local conditions to create a practical dwelling that brings daily joy to its users. Known as Villa XY, the expansive contemporary home was conceived to house three generations, producing a model of 21st century Moroccan living. ‘The family wanted to change course, from a house in downtown Casablanca to its suburb Dar Bouazza, which is close to the sea, in order to fully enjoy it as a primary, as well as holiday, residence,’ says…

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Originally launched in 1996, Patek Philippe’s ‘Annual Calendar’ watch stripped back a complicated mechanism, imbuing its notorious complexity with a design purity and focusing on ease of use. This contemporary approach to watchmaking was complimented by a nod to its history upon the introduction of the first ‘Regular’ models a decade ago. In their movement and dial layout, they referenced the clocks put in watch shops to help watchmakers regulate the watches they were working on, hence the name. This interweaving of the past and the present reaches its pinnacle in the elegant ‘Annual Calendar Regulator 5235/50R’ incarnation. Encased in rose gold with a two-tone graphite and ebony dial and a vertical satin finish, it’s an elegant accessory for a black-tie do, making it a natural choice for our entertaining…

Among tequila aficionados, Casa Dragones looms large, as much for its small-batch production of crystalline spirits as for its stylish brand HQ, a late 17th-century manse in San Miguel de Allende that used to house the stables of the Dragones (the legendary cavalry that fought for Mexico’s independence). Its newly opened Obsidian Bar, designed by New York studio Meyer Davis, in collaboration with local architect Marco Martinez Valle, is an atmospheric bolthole of glassy black volcanic stone, timber floors and exposed brick, with light streaming in through archways and clerestories and bouncing off the brass accents and white granite counter of the bar. The striking barrel vaults, sheathed in the titular obsidian, were particularly tricky to create, as the stone is extremely brittle and cracks easily. The shape of the…

To describe the design philosophy behind his collections at Italian menswear label Brioni, Norbert Stumpfl evokes the work of Swiss architect Valerio Olgiati. In particular, his Villa Além in rural Portugal, a monolithic modernist home inspired by the 14th-century Court of the Myrtles in Granada’s historic Alhambra Palace. Slanted walls around the exterior give the appearance that the home is opening ‘like a shoe box’, as Stumpfl describes, while the Court of the Myrtles’ rectangular reflecting pond is replaced with an elongated swimming pool embedded into a stark concrete courtyard. Olgiati said he wanted a place he and his wife could feel ‘abandoned’. ‘It’s so reduced, it’s so powerful,’ says Stumpfl from his own sparse, white-walled office in Brioni’s headquarters on Piazza di San Bernardo, a small square on Rome’s…

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A mood of nostalgic elegance defines A this season’s bag offering, which sees a return to the structured, top-handle styles of the 1950s, albeit reimagined in a myriad of ways that are anything but prim. Prada’s angular take clashes retro references with a geometric silhouette inspired by the house’s triangular leitmotif (which here becomes the bag’s clasp), while Louis Vuitton’s ‘GO-14 MM’ bag is crafted from boldly quilted matellage leather to sculptural effect. Also quilted is the latest riff on the classic Miss Dior, reimagined as a ladylike top-handle style adorned with the house’s signature criss-crossing Cannage motif. At Ferragamo, the ‘Frame’ bag, available in a multitude of colours and iterations, recalls the traditional pocketbook, while Hermès’ ever-elegant take comes in the ‘Medor’ bag, adorned with a tough studded clasp.…

Renowned for his streetwear label A-Cold-Wall* and collaborations with brands such as Apple, Samuel Ross approaches fashion and product design with an equal measure of unrestrained experimentation and shrewd pop cultural attentiveness. He takes the same approach with his concept for a new bathroom tap for US lifestyle brand Kohler. Ross set out to change how we perceive and interact with this type of fixture, exploring how a radical reconfiguration of an object that we might otherwise take for granted can help us slow down and become more conscious of our daily routines. Making its debut in a fully immersive display at Design Miami in December, the ‘Formation 01’ faucet is defined by an angular, rocker-style shape and audacious Haptic Orange colourway, and is moulded as a singular object using…

For the past 27 years, British shoemaker John Lobb has paid an annual tribute to St Crispin, the patron saint of cobblers, with a limited-edition Saint Crépin model that shows off the heights of its craftsmanship. The 2024 edition, the Henry, is primed for special occasions, but arrives at a wider shift in men’s footwear, where the once-ubiquitous sneaker is being eschewed for more classic styles. The shoe is built, as is tradition for the Saint Crépin model, from the brand’s slender 7000 last, and is a sophisticated riff on the Oxford brogue, elevated in glazed high-shine leather with leather-lace wingtip detailing designed to evoke hand-stitched embroidery. Manufactured in an edition of 500 individually-numbered pieces and only available in John Lobb stores, the Henry also features the house’s ‘Prestige’ sole,…

Lara Bohinc has just unveiled Utopia, a new installation created for the Miami Design District. Part of the neighbourhood’s annual design commission, selected in collaboration with the Design Miami curatorial lab, the installation will take over the district’s pedestrian areas for a year, as well as welcome visitors to the fair. Utopia marks the first US commission of the London-based Slovenian creative, who started her career as a jewellery designer before moving to furniture and objects, through collaborations with brands such as Driade, Roll & Hill and Kasthall, as well as ongoing self-produced limited-edition series. Nature has always been present in Bohinc’s geometric yet soft compositions: among her latest projects is ‘Peaches’, a series of curvaceous furniture pieces, as well as a collection of vases for Driade shaped like abstract…

For stockists, see page 161…

Bronze incense holder by Vogel Studio, for Aesop Designed by Vogel Studio for Aesop and made of pure bronze, this asymmetrical incense holder exudes a sense of calm, whether in use or just on display. Intended to complement the cult Australian skincare brand’s ‘Aromatique’ incense sticks (which are crafted in Japan by a centuries-old incense atelier using aromas formulated in collaboration with Barnabé Fillion), it takes its cues from the shape of an open hand, turned upwards in a gesture of both holding and offering. Over time and use, the dish will develop a natural patina, ‘a visual memory of smoke and ash’, that can be left or cleaned up, depending on your preference. Bronze incense holder, £115, by Vogel Studio, for Aesop, from Selfridges, selfridges.com…