taste timing and tacit power
Culture
have we stopped caring?
What happens when fashion stops leading and starts following? From Anna Wintour’s quiet power play to a bistro runway revolt in Paris, we explore how taste is collapsing under the weight of commerce, critique is punished, and originality is pushed to the margins. In a culture obsessed with algorithms and status, what we call “style” may just be recycled noise. But there’s a pulse — if you know where to listen.
THE DEATH OF CULTURE
We consider the way in which art, design, commerce and advertising have merged into one homogenous, undefinable aesthetic, where everything looks kinda good, and everything looks kinda the same, thereby making us unhappy.
The concept of simplicity
We consider the extraordinary life of Chilean art patron Eugenia Errázuriz, a truly groundbreaking talent, and minimalist to the end, who, counting ascetically minded French decorator Jean-Michel Frank amongst her many disciples, called “la colonie”, ushered in not only modernism, but the sort of laid-back, comfortable interiors we still live with today.
PEOPLE
The beauty of geometeries
We spoke to New York-based architect and interior designer Andre Mellone, whose masculine, pared-back aesthetic, he proffers, has a “certain sensuality”, thanks to his Brazilian roots, about his taste, inspirations, and the way in which twentieth-century style still has a chokehold on the contemporary design scene.
EXPLORING, CONTAMINATING, REINVENTING
If one thinks of La Madunina, and the extraordinary roster of designers, such as Gio Ponti, Carlo Mollino and Ettore Sottsass, who made the city a design mecca, one can’t speak of the contemporary design scene without referencing Dimore Studio, founded by Britt Moran and Emiliano Salci, and as such, we got together to discuss their approach, inspirations and desire to keep exploring, contaminating, and reinventing.
RESTRAINED WHIMSY
We spoke to Upper Eastside gallerist and interior designer Alyssa Kapito, who is, by her own admission, a devotee at the galuchat-clad altar of French decorative arts, about her work, inspirations, “Romantasy” fiction and whether or not she can pull off Lalanne finger caps.
TRAVEL
At Sloane
Upon entering the burnt-brick hues of the hotel’s Neo-Greek lobby, one quickly loses all sense of the outside world, entering a richly layered mise-en-scène, a throwback to a golden age of luxury. Beguiled by its inherent charm, I met the designer, François-Joseph Graf, for a tour, after which, we discussed his influences and inspirations, the decorators he most admires, and more pressing concerns, such as where to get the best steak tartare and frog legs in Paris.
Atmospheric intent
“Hotel Château Voltaire is anything but a decoration,” explains Thierry Gillier, “It is a place of today to be experienced today by people of today.” With that in mind, we spoke to Charlotte de Tonnac and Hugo Sauzay of Festen architecture, not only about their design for this 32-room five-star Paris hotel, but also their likes, dislikes and, in the case of the former, a long-harboured desire to moonlight as a dancer.
Home Away From Home
We spoke to Andrea Bokobsa, co-founder of Pied-A-Terre Paris, about his passion for art and design (in part inspired by his mother, a former designer for Baby Dior and Bonpoint) and where he hopes to take the company in coming years
ARCHIVE
culture
PEOPLE
travel