Innehållsförteckning för September 2021 från Architectural Digest

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The algorithm doesn’t lie. Slowly but surely, the Explore grid on Eva Chen’s Instagram feed morphed from shoes, bags, and beauty serums into ceramics, mirrors, and house tours. Meanwhile, words like patina and names like Paul McCobb began to pepper her conversations and thoughts. All signs pointed to her latest project: the renovation of a Connecticut country home for her young family. For Chen, a born-and-raised New Yorker and sartorial superstar who now works as Instagram’s Director of Fashion and Shopping Partnerships, these newfound fixations marked an even larger shift. “I grew up a first-generation American in Greenwich Village and didn’t know a landscape beyond Manhattan,” she reflects. “To me, nature was Washington Square Park.” A weekend at Troutbeck hotel with her husband, Tom Bannister, an advertising creative director, introduced…

“Adam and Behati like to live with beautiful things, but in a super-casual way, where the kids have the run of the house, and friends and family are always welcome,” designer Kathleen Clements notes. life at the home of Adam and Behati Prinsloo Levine doesn’t seem very, well, rock-and-roll-y. Or supermodel-y, for that matter. The rooms aren’t cavernous, there’s no crazy waterfall or lagoon, and instead of zebra stripes and patent leather, all the furniture is covered in lovely linens and bouclés. Nothing feels even vaguely louche. To be fair, Adam does own a king’s ransom in groovy, blue-chip sneakers, but the closet where he keeps them has a Rick Owens daybed smack in the middle of it. That’s something you don’t see on your average episode of Cribs. “We…

In July 1929—when the Roaring Twenties were still roaring—celebrated British orchestra conductor Leopold Stokowski commissioned Louis Vuitton to design and produce a portable secretary. By then, the Paris luggage company, founded by French master trunk maker Louis Vuitton in 1854, had produced an impressive, if curious, array of specialty designs. The Bed Trunk, which contained a folding cot, was favored by 19th-century explorer Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza; the Library Trunk was commanded by Encyclopædia Britannica to deliver its 29-volume 11th edition to customers; and the Shoes Trunk was requested by American opera diva Lily Pons for her ample collection of pumps. Upon receiving Stokowski’s order, the design team—led by Louis’s son Georges at the company’s original workshop in the Paris suburb of Asnières-sur-Seine—set about reconfiguring the traditional malle, or travel…

The material details, the narrative, the experience—we each bring something different to a project,” says Sanam Salek, reflecting on collaborations with her older and younger sisters, Safura and Laylee, all three designers. In New York City, this trio of rising stars has carried that three-pronged approach into the new Rimowa flagship, a SoHo showcase for the German brand’s coveted luggage and accessories. “It was important to create a really flexible floor plan and fixtures that allowed for different customer experiences,” Laylee says of the 550-square-foot shop, as slick as a Rimowa suitcase with adjustable, wall-mounted aluminum-and-polycarbonate shelves and concrete-and-Corian-clad tables. At the back, a cylindrical capsule of mirrored aluminum contains a passport-photo booth, lending a futuristic feel to an often irksome process. “You can retake as many times as you…

“It’s like a postcard,” says Hugo Sauzay, one half of the Parisian design duo Festen, describing Splendido Mare, the beloved Belmond hotel in Portofino. “You’re on a pier in Italy, you close your eyes, people are shouting, waves are crashing.” That was a feeling he and Charlotte de Tonnac, his partner in business and life, embraced when updating the iconic property, situated in a 1930s building with just 14 guest rooms. Traditional marquetry in a rope motif, swirling terra-cotta floor tiles, and vintage Italian heirlooms by Gio Ponti and Paolo Buffa quietly blend, creating interiors that nod to the 1950s dolce vita and the port’s humble origins as a fishing village. Conjuring a mood is a specialty for the couple, who met at Paris’s École Camondo and landed their first…

James Crump, the intrepid director, writer, and art historian, has done the impossible, crafting a smart, serious architecture documentary that isn’t hopelessly dry and boring. His latest film, Breuer’s Bohemia, takes an incisive look into the roiling cultural milieu in which Marcel Breuer crafted some of his most groundbreaking residential projects. It’s a tale of inspiration and decadence, rife with heavy drinking and free love, all set against a backdrop of leftist politics and social iconoclasm incubated in the seemingly staid suburban outposts of Connecticut and Massachusetts. “It’s a real-life version of Frank Perry’s The Swimmer meets Ang Lee’s The Ice Storm. The wild stories of Breuer and his circle of friends and advocates have all the necessary dramatic tension required for a film,” says Crump, who, in 2017, acquired…

“What they do in fashion,” Job Smeets says of Viktor & Rolf, “I do in design.” “It may not be the most functional kitchen,” Smeets says, “but for people who don’t cook, it’s a beautiful kitchen.” amusement parks are for the young. At least that’s the conventional wisdom. Job Smeets, however, has never put away childish things. For the founder of Studio Job, the provocative product-design firm, youthful recollections of Efteling—the largest theme park in the Netherlands—form the DNA of his defiantly kitsch creations. Imagine an armchair in the form of a hamburger, a punching bag that appears to be made of red brick, and a table lamp that mimics a half-peeled banana. “If I can visualize those memories, I can explore new shapes and forms,” explains Smeets, who launched…

All products have been identified by the designer of each residence. Items similar to vintage and antique pieces shown are aften available from the dealers listed. Contact information was up to date at time of publication. HOUSE MUSIC PAGES 72–81: Interior design by Clements Design; clementsdesign.com. Landscape design by Rios; rios.com. Art advisory by Meredith Darrow; darrowcontemporary.com. Closet organization and styling; detailyourlife.com. PAGE 72: Sofa, daybed, and cocktail tables; clementsdesign.com. Floor lamp; andreabranzi.it. Jean Prouvé oak chairs; maxfieldla.com. Custom paint color; benjaminmoore.com. PAGE 73: On Adam, sweater by Maison Margiela; maisonmargiela.com; pants by Rick Owens; rickowens.eu; Tent & Trail Nike sneakers by Union x Jordan; unionlosangeles.com. On Behati, bustier top by Khaite; khaite.com; trousers by Helmut Lang; helmutlang.com; shoes by Bottega Veneta; bottegaveneta.com; jewelry by Bulgari; bulgari.com. PAGE 74: Custom…

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They say the best ideas come in the shower. But what about while standing at the sink? Such was the case for French designer Michel Ducaroy, who, one morning in the 1960s, examined his aluminum toothpaste tube, which, he said, “folded back on itself like a stovepipe and closed at both ends.” One quick sketch later it inspired his most recognizable design—Togo, a cushy, crimped, ground-hugging sofa series. Unveiled at Paris’s Salon des Arts Ménagers in 1973, the hunk of foam wrapped in quilted polyester that Ducaroy designed for Ligne Roset was met with skepticism. “The main shock was that it had no base,” recalls Antoine Roset, global marketing director and a great-great-grandson of Ligne Roset’s founder. “People thought we forgot or didn’t have time to build one.” Still, Togo…

Coinciding with the 200th anniversary of company founder Louis Vuitton’s birth, the brand has introduced the Secrétaire Bureau 2.0, an update of the Stokowski with modern needs in mind. The desk is larger, to accommodate laptops, as are compartments for storage. There is a cable passage for efficient wire management, a “smart top” that keeps the trunk organized when closed, and a lid lining that can serve as a bulletin board. As with all Vuitton trunks, carpenters craft a structure made of three types of wood: poplar for framework; okoume, a light, resistant African wood, for the body and lid; and beech for decorative and reinforcing laths. The interior is available finished with varnished beechwood or straw marquetry. And like all specialty Vuitton trunks, it is made to order, price…

Magnifica is an apt description for Bulgari’s new high jewelry collection of precious bracelets, necklaces, earrings, and more, festooned with diamonds, sapphires, emeralds, rubies, even an Ancient Roman coin or two. Conjured by Lucia Silvestri, the Italian luxury brand’s jewelry creative director, the glittering range digs as deeply into its archives for inspiration as the company enthusiastically preserves history itself. In a time when old-fashioned civic patronage can seem, well, old-fashioned, Bulgari relishes the responsibility. From refreshing mosaics in the Baths of Caracalla (which inspired the firm’s 2016 Divas’ Dream collection) to the biannual MAXXI Bulgari Prize for young artists, the firm has become a leading savior of the city it has called home since 1884. Besmirched by grime and damaged by tourism, the 18th-century Spanish Steps got their glory…

“I’ve been working nonstop since 2017,” says Woody De Othello, Zooming from his studio in California’s Bay Area, where he’s preparing for two ambitious fall shows: one this September at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, and the other in October at Jessica Silverman in San Francisco. Ceramic ears, lips, noses, and hands that he made during a Kohler Arts Center residency (cut short by the pandemic) cover the tables, ready to be assembled into vaguely figurative vessels that nod to precolonial Yoruba pottery and Nkisi figures. “I’ve been freestyling a lot more,” says the artist, lately inspired by the “spontaneous, intuitive, improvisational energy” of jazz. Such abstraction marks a shift for Othello, born in Miami to Haitian-immigrant parents and best known for his witty takes on…