Indholdsfortegnelse for October 2025 i Wallpaper

It’s never been easier to go somewhere, but at the same time, it’s also never been harder to say why. As the most well-travelled generation in history, we can effortlessly book a trip to the other side of the world to eat the same poke bowl we had last weekend in Shoreditch, or lie under the same rattan pendant lamps as our friend in Uluwatu. Where we once made journeys of discovery, we now book hotels and restaurants based on their Tripadvisor ratings, curated by algorithms and optimised for convenience. And what used to be full of uncertainty – missed trains, misread menus, unfamiliar etiquette – has become safe and predictable: language barriers vanish with Google Translate, and the best flat white within 100m has already been bookmarked. But the…

It’s 1930, and the American film industry, along with the entire economy, is struggling in the reverberations of the stock market crash of 1929. Celebrated Hollywood film producer Samuel Goldwyn feels that a new mood of escapism and glamour is needed, and he calls the person he believes is the only one who can introduce chic to Hollywood: Gabrielle Chanel. He offers her one million dollars. Cautious but curious, Chanel embarks on a trial voyage, arriving in New York in March 1931 to a media frenzy. Stars flock to greet her (‘Two Queens Meet!’ trumpet the papers when Greta Garbo is there to welcome her) and she sets to work, creating the clothes for three films: Palmy Days (1931), Tonight or Never (1931) and The Greeks Had a Word for…

‘There is a quieter tradition going on, different artists deciding there’s something really interesting in this room to paint, rather than outside,’ says Scottish painter Andrew Cranston. ‘Philosophically, you can only be in one place at a time, and we spend a lot of our lives in rooms, or in limited spaces. I think there’s a disease, a paranoia, that you’re missing out on something over the hill or a party in the next room. It’s a simplistic thing, but there’s some truth in it – it’s almost like all the world’s problems stem from a person’s inability to be happy in their own room.’ Cranston, born in 1969 in Hawick, Scotland, and based in Glasgow, draws on an art education that concluded with postgraduate studies at the Royal College…

On any given day at the east London studio of British fashion designer Craig Green, located in the former Carlsberg-Tetley offices in the Docklands, you might find paddling pools filled with water for creating surreal mouldings of suitcases, stirrups or hiking bottles; an experimental shop display, comprising rods of scaffold or enormous hoops, destined for the shop floor of Dover Street Market; or a series of figures working away on tiny glowing eyeglasses, constructed from the miniscule lightbulbs used to illuminate doll houses. You might even encounter a runway show: on a warm June morning last summer, Green presented his S/S25 collection in the studio, beloved by the designer for its vast windows that look out towards the Thames and flood the space with light. ‘So much has happened here…

The long view This month, we give the magazine over to a selection of long-form stories that we feel warrant the unique perspective afforded by print. Given the clamour to create in a multiplatform environment, we believe offering time and space to a series of in-depth articles further enriches our engagement with the world. And by honouring the true value of a medium that privileges rich visual executions, expansive reporting, and the careful juxtaposing of topics and projects, we hope this goes some way to revealing something pertinent and insightful about broader shifts in culture and life, too. Over the next 300 pages, we bring you the methods and motivations of a plethora of world-class creatives, including Bas Smets, the landscape architect renewing our relationship with the natural world, the…

You might expect a landscape architect to put plants at the heart of their universe. In a sense, Bas Smets, one of the industry’s pioneering thinkers, does that, too, but it’s the triptych of philosophy, art and science that forms his true north star. Perhaps it’s because landscapes are ever-changing – their very idea evolving over time and history – but also, as nature is alive and therefore a moving target, it physically morphs into something different every day. ‘You need to understand a site and work with it, and realise that it is not in a state of ‘being’, but it’s in a constant state of ‘becoming’,’ the Belgian landscape architect says. In this fluid and dynamic condition, references are needed, and while you might not immediately associate these…

A village industry with a global reach: the New Balance factory in the Cumbrian town of Flimby (population 1,707) in north-west England is an outlier in an industry now estimated to be worth $120bn. Here, premium sneakers with a technical aesthetic and contemporary design are manufactured at scale using time-honoured techniques and a meticulous approach to craftsmanship. First launched in 1982, New Balance’s Made in UK label is rooted in local culture and brand heritage. ‘New Balance is one of the only athletic footwear brands that still manufactures in the UK. This sets us apart,’ says Sam Pearce, senior creative design manager of Made in UK. ‘There is this blend of craftsmanship and pride; the stitch lines are perfect, but they carry the human touch of the people who put…

It seems fitting that Irma Boom – a woman who has done more than perhaps any other living person to alert the world to the possibilities of the book as a desirable, cutting-edge medium for the transmission of knowledge, and whose very surname means ‘tree’ in her native Dutch – should seek to communicate via print, even in person. ‘Every year, it grows by three per cent, whether it’s produced or not,’ she says, laying out three tiny volumes of varying dimensions, each no bigger than a matchbox, on the kitchen table of her premises in Amsterdam’s Oud-Zuid district. These are successive editions of her signature ‘little red book’, cataloguing her life’s work in reverse chronological order with the designer’s ‘comments here and there’. The covers are emblazoned with BOOM…

Clash mob A Prada jewellery collection is a mismatch made in heaven Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons have zoned in on an edgy and unpredictable interpretation of fine jewellery in a new offering that celebrates contrasts. Defined by geometrical contradictions and bold strokes of colour, the Prada Fine Jewelry Couleur Vivante collection embodies a playful clash of forms. Encompassing necklaces, bracelets, rings and earrings, the collection juxtaposes gemstones in sorbet shades for jewellery that eschews uniformity, rethinking classical line bracelets and drop earrings with sharp cuts and asymmetrical pairings. Gemstones, including amethyst, aquamarine, madeira citrine, pink morganite and oro verde peridot, are teased into sharp angles or softly-rounded orbs, cutting a very modern silhouette when studding the sensual coils of bracelets or dangling from earlobes. prada.com Chilling encounter Veuve Clicquot’s…

Despite the petabytes of personal memories, media, culture and history that exist within the distant data centres that cloud our horizons, the way we engage with these 0s and 1s alters with each innovation, update and new product launch. No sooner had we got wise to early consumer capitalism’s planned obsolescence, a sneaky way of ensuring a steady stream of repeat business with minimum effort, then this ruse shape-shifted to become a defining part of what makes something modern: the upgrade cycle. Was there ever a golden era of long-lasting tech? Perhaps the 1970s, when performance was predicated on quality, and digitisation hadn’t begun the conversion of all analogue media into code. A vinyl LP was a persistent, enduring object with decades of history and decades of life still to…

The traditional watch boutique tends to present its wares in vitrines and on velvet cushions. Audemars Piguet, however, has been reimagining the setting as a luxurious immersive experience, creating convivial spaces in the likes of Amsterdam, New York, Tokyo and Zurich. At these AP Houses, the Swiss manufacturer’s chronographs and grand complications are showcased against a harmonious backdrop of art, design, music and cocktails. The latest AP House – a double-fronted Georgian townhouse on Manchester’s King Street – is the brand’s second in the UK. The sensitively renovated, Grade II-listed property presents a clean, minimalist counterpart to the watches’ complex architectural codes, while curated details, objets and motifs reflect the history and culture of the northern city. In the lobby, clad in Vallée de Joux limestone, an installation by silversmith…

Wallpaper* How did you two meet? Bas Smets I was in [artist] Philippe Parreno’s studio in Paris, and he told me, ‘You really have to read this book The Life of Plants.’ I invited Emanuele to be in conversation at the Palais de Chaillot in Paris, where we had an exhibition in 2018. I then took his book to the Boboli Gardens in Florence, and I had an afternoon to myself, underlining passages from it to form questions for our conversation. Emanuele Coccia That was the first time we actually met, but it is important to say that we also saw each other in a bar later, and then had dinner and a longer conversation. But we met because of Philippe, who is a very close friend of both of…

The ‘Made in Italy’ standard is a globally acknowledged benchmark of quality, craftmanship and authenticity, but luxury Italian footwear brand Santoni takes that standard a stage further with its ‘Made in Santoni’ credo. ‘Everything “Santoni” is created entirely in-house, using a highly specialised approach,’ says chairman Giuseppe Santoni. Each pair of shoes is the result of skilled hands, years of experience, a complex understanding of beauty and proportion, and an uncompromising standard of quality. A pair of Santoni’s classic double-buckle shoes offers a tantalising flash of tangerine kid-leather lining and a glimpse of orange leather sole, a colour that echoes the sunsets in Marche, the eastern Italian region where Santoni is based. Its uppers, meanwhile, sport the brand’s distinctive multilayered velatura finish. ‘Santoni shoes are made to last,’ notes Giuseppe.…

Founded by Irish immigrant William J Riley in Boston, Massachusetts, back in 1906, the New Balance Arch Support Company originally specialised in orthotic footwear, with a three-point orthopaedic insole inspired by the effortless stability of hens in the founder’s back yard. The company’s big break in sport didn’t come until 1960, when the newly branded New Balance Athletic Shoe Company released its ‘Trackster’ model, the first running shoe available in varying widths. In 1972, the company had just six full-time workers making 20-30 pairs of shoes a day. This all changed in 1976 with the ‘320’ shoe, complete with new ‘N’ logo. Unveiled during a peak year for the running trend that got an estimated 25 million Americans jogging, the New Balance ‘320’ became a bestseller. Fifty years later, it…

A self-sufficient community for around 1,600 people built between 1947 and 1952, Le Corbusier’s Unité d’Habitation in Marseille responded to the urgent post-war need for low-cost housing, yet also achieved a timelessly human appeal. Thanks to the ever-present proportions of Le Corbusier’s Modulor measurement, based on the average human body, but also to the sensory effects in the light-filled, double-height living spaces, with their framed views of the mountains or Mediterranean sea, its residents seem to enjoy both new perspectives and psychological wellbeing. More than a ‘machine for living’, the building hums with the energy of a sculptural organism – one that embraces the materiality of raw concrete. Although colossal in scale, it is often personified fondly as a quirky character (flaws and all). It rests on thick pilotis, or…

Many a designer will proudly state that their latest creation is timeless. We roll our eyes because claiming longevity before time has had its say is highfalutin. Beauty may belong in the eye of the beholder, but timelessness is born in the sands of, well, time. Defining timelessness in design is rather futile. It asks us to suspend subjective feelings and subscribe instead to a universal set of principles that underscore ‘good design’, defying time, technology, trend or taste. Timelessness is, by its nature, elusive. As an overused descriptor, it teeters on the brink of obsoletion, heading down the same rubbish chute as iconic, sustainable, classic and authentic. Hold the lid though. Beyond the hollow bombast of the word ‘timelessness’, the qualities of designing for the long-term are precisely what…

&Tradition andtradition.com Alessi alessi.com Alias alias.design Aram aram.co.uk Audo Copenhagen audocph.com B&B Italia bebitalia.com Bang & Olufsen bang-olufsen.com Boon Room boon-room.com Bottega Veneta bottegaveneta.com Carl Hansen & Søn carlhansen.com Cassina cassina.com Christofle christofle.com ClassiCon classicon.com Dedar dedar.com Devin Wilde devinwilde.com Eddie Olin eddieolin.com Farrow & Ball farrow-ball.com Florim florim.com Flos flos.com Frigerio frigerio.com Harrods harrods.com Herno Laminar herno.com Kieffer kieffertextiles.com Kirkby Design kirkbydesign.com Knoll International knoll-int.com Kvadrat kvadrat.dk Little Greene littlegreene.com Lobmeyr lobmeyr.at Lodes lodes.com Louis Vuitton louisvuitton.com Lumina lumina.it Mandarin Stone mandarinstone.com Marazzi marazzigroup.com MDF Italia mdfitalia.com Michael Anasstasiades michaelanastassiades.com Middernacht & Alexander middernachtalexander.com Minotti minotti.com Molteni & C molteni.it Monument monumentgallery.co.uk No Ga Projects no-ga.com Nordic Knots nordicknots.com Oigåll Projects oigallprojects.com Palet palet.shop Petra Hardware petrahardware.com Poliform poliform.com Prada prada.com Puiforcat puiforcat.com Supersedia supersedia.com Tacchini tacchini.it The Rug…