How to stand out amid the nearly 2,000 presenters of contemporary design at Salone del Mobile? The debut of Salone Raritas offers one approach.

Tucked into Pavilion 9 of the imposing 16-building campus, the new and highly selective exhibition—curated by fair’s editorial and cultural director Annalisa Rosso with exhibition design by Formafantasma—arrived with a deceptively simple premise: to bring rare, outsider pieces (that is, collectibles, historic craft, and limited editions) into dialogue with the industry titans presenting elsewhere in the design fiar compound. The 28 exhibitors in Raritas represent 32 countries and the breadth of history: antiques, contemporary pieces, and craft objects. “The selection was intentionally heterogeneous: unique pieces, limited editions, antiques, experimental works, and high-end craft from different parts of the world, in order to bring together diverse languages and approaches,” Salone Raritas curator Annalissa Rosso, who also serves as the fair’s editorial and cultural director, says.

For design house Zaza Maison, the new section offered a historic opportunity to represent Saudi Arabia at the fair. The contemporary furniture brand’s on-site offering—a selection of chrome sculptures and furniture that conjured windswept dunes and the Saudi shemagh (headscarf)—brought the Gulf to the center of the design world’s biggest annual gathering.

The range of exhibitors was evident in the varied moods represented across the section’s booths. Marseille gallery 13desserts emanated the energy of an apero—a warm, social gathering space adorned with playful pieces that invited an encounter. Elsewhere, Italian interior design gallery Serafini presented a contemplative array of meticulously carved tables and stools by Indian designer Karan Desai.

As a bonus, Milan-based ceramics gallery Officine Saffi Lab staged the assembly of one work live, on-site, with artisans adding the finishing touches to a ceramic panel work in real time.

The design of the exhibition space, courtesy of design duo Formafantasma, developed 34 hues—pinks, greens, dark blues, and oranges among them—inviting each gallery to select their preferred combination to adorn the walls of their booth. In keeping with Formafantasma‘s commitment to sustainability, the wooden dividers separating each booth have been designed for a second life—carefully stored and redeployed over the next three years of Salone Raritas. Even the hanging systems used to suspend the dividers were engineered to avoid drilling, ensuring the entire infrastructure can be reused with minimal waste and maximum efficiency.

As Salone del Mobile president Maria Porro put it, Salone Raritas is about intercepting “the growing demand for rare and iconic pieces from architects, developers, brands, and investors.” As evidenced by the packed exhibition space and reports of a warm reception from presenters, that demand was unmistakable—a signal of the market’s appetite for Salone Raritas’s offerings.

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Jeff Klein rode the ’90s wave of boutique hotels through to the boom of private clubs, a riposte to social media’s guarantee of a glimpse into every room. The hotelier and restaurateur’s lodestar may be LA’s Sunset Tower Hotel, but his buzziest offspring is the East Coast expansion of his San Vicente social club.

What keeps you up at night?

Responsibility. I feel accountable to my members, my team, my investors—and to the standard I’ve set. Once you build something meaningful, you don’t get to coast.

What’s one work of art that got you through an important moment in your life?

Architecture has carried me through the most pivotal moments of my life. When I walk into a distressed property, I don’t see what it is; I see what it could become. Transformation has always grounded me. Turning a neglected space into somewhere people gather, create, and feel at home is deeply personal to me. The most important turning points in my life have sharpened that instinct rather than shaken it.

What do you think is your biggest contribution to culture?

Creating protected spaces for artists and thinkers to coexist—writers, actors, painters, musicians—without intrusion. Culture needs environments where people feel safe enough to take creative risks. I’m proud of building those rooms.

What do you want to see more of in your industry? Less of?

More conviction. More places that build from their own DNA instead of chasing trends. Less imitation. There’s too much copying and not enough soul.

What would you be doing if you weren’t working in your field?

Honestly, I can’t imagine doing anything else. I would still be building, just in a different form. Maybe chic senior living facilities?

Where do you feel most at home?

At one of my properties, late afternoon, martini in hand, fries on the table, and a make-your-own sundae for dessert. That ritual feels like completion.

What are you looking forward to this year?

I genuinely look forward to the daily ritual of creating—spaces, experiences, menus, etc. I don’t take that for granted. But personally, I’m especially excited for a birthday trip to Morocco with my husband. We’re going to Tangier, which feels romantic and cinematic in a way I love.

What’s something people get wrong about you?

People assume I’m simply “nice.” I’m warm, but I’m also exacting. Standards matter to me—and I enforce them.

Name an influence of yours that might surprise people.

My mother. She has impeccable taste and an unerring eye for quality. She taught me that discernment is a muscle. You either train it or you don’t.

When’s the last time you laughed hysterically?

Today. If you’re not laughing every day, you’re taking life too seriously.

What is your biggest vice? Your greatest virtue?

My vice is that I want people to feel happy and taken care of, sometimes to a fault. My greatest virtue is taste. I know when something is right, and I won’t compromise on it.

What would you like the headline of your obituary to be?

“He Built Rooms Where Shit Happened.”

What would you wear to meet your greatest enemy?

Something impeccably tailored. Probably my new Thom Sweeney suit with a simple T-shirt. Understated, sharp, controlled.

What’s been the hardest part of your career so far?

Raising capital for a vision that only exists in my head at first. Convincing others to see what doesn’t yet exist requires stamina.

What grounds you, and what invigorates you?

My husband and routine ground me. My domestic life is steady and secure. Genius invigorates me, in any field. When I encounter real originality or authenticity, it energizes me immediately.

To read more from the 2026 CULT100 honorees, see the full list here.

For nearly two decades, Alan Dye helped Apple dominate user design, beginning with the only popular implementation of wearable tech, the Apple Watch, and ending with the controversial Liquid Glass interface. He just joined Meta Reality Labs to steer its foray into devices. If anyone can make smart glasses happen, it’s him.

What’s been the hardest part of your career so far?

Leaving Apple, after nearly 20 years. The team I built, the work we made together… it was more than a job. I gave it everything, but I knew I still had a chapter to write and new things to learn. Walking away from something you love because you know you need to grow is the hardest kind of courage. But the best things I’ve ever done came from jumping, not standing still. 

What’s something people get wrong about you? 

That I’m a tech guy. I’m a design guy who happens to work in tech. Before I went to Apple, I spent years working with Kate and Andy Spade on their brands, illustrating for the New York Times, and making editorial work for magazines. Design and fashion came first. Technology just became a new and interesting canvas for me. 

What do you want to see more of in your industry? Less of? 

More taste. Less consensus. The best work I’ve ever been part of was made by small groups of people with strong opinions and the courage to ship them. The worst was made by committees who optimized the soul out of something beautiful. 

What’s one work of art that got you through an important moment in your life?

Paul Rand’s Thoughts on Design. I read this book while studying art at Syracuse University, and return to it often. Rand believed that good design should be clear, memorable, and contribute beauty and intelligence to everyday life. I knew when I read it this would be my personal mandate for my work. 

What are you looking forward to this year? 

Building something no one’s seen before. I just started a new studio, and we’re designing the future of intelligent products. Shaping these powerful technologies in ways that empower users and help them live a better day is thrilling. It’s the most exciting moment of change in our industry that I could imagine, and I’m not going to miss it.

Also, Italy in the summer and a pizza at Concettina ai Tre Sante in Naples with Ciro.

What grounds you, and what invigorates you? 

My family grounds me. My kids don’t care about my job; they care about whether I’m around, present, and (most importantly) making pizzas. They keep me honest.

What invigorates me is the beginning of things. A blank page, a new team, a problem no one’s solved. That feeling of possibility before the first mark is made—I’m addicted to it. 

What do you think is your biggest contribution to culture?

Honestly, I hope it’s something people can’t quite point to, but they can feel. I spent nearly 20 years at Apple, and the work I’m proudest of isn’t any single product. It’s the care in all of them. The way every Apple product responds to your touch, the way graphics animate fluidly between states, the way sounds guide the experience, or haptics alert the user. All the small moments of surprise and delight. None of that is accidental. We obsessed over every one of those details. Not because we needed to, because we wanted to. My biggest contribution was proving that billions of people can feel the difference between something made with care and something that was just shipped. Even if they’d never be able to point to it, describe it, or even use the word “design,” they know.

To read more from the 2026 CULT100 honorees, see the full list here.

Andrea Trimarchi and Simone Farresin of Milan’s Formafantasma have emerged as fashion and art’s go-to design studio. In the last year, they’ve designed runways for Meryll Rogge’s Marni debut, scenography for the new Fondation Cartier, and a quietly radical take on the Shaker legacy for a show at the Vitra Design Museum.

What keeps you up at night?

The awareness that design still operates largely as a tool that sustains extractive systems while presenting itself as progressive. The gap between what the discipline claims to do—improve the world—and what it actually enables in terms of environmental depletion and labor exploitation is not abstract; it has material consequences. This is difficult to ignore.

What’s something people get wrong about you?

That we are pessimistic or anti-design. The critique we articulate is not a rejection of the discipline, but an attempt to expand its responsibilities. Criticality is often mistaken for negativity, but it is a form of care.

Name an influence of yours that might surprise people.

Reading corporate reports and legal documents. They are often more revealing than theoretical texts because they show how power actually operates in material terms. But also the movies of David Lynch. That full trust on intuition and imagination is so inspiring.

What do you want to see more of in your industry? Less of?

More accountability—designers taking responsibility for the full life cycle and implications of their work. Less production justified by narratives of innovation that are disconnected from necessity or consequence. More intelligent people working in marketing.

What question do you ask yourself most often while you’re making work?

Who benefits from this, and at whose expense? 

What do you think is your biggest contribution to culture?

Introducing a mode of practice where design is not primarily about form-making but about inquiry—using objects, exhibitions, and research as tools to expose political, ecological, and economic structures. Not proposing solutions prematurely, but making complexity legible.

Who do you call the most?

Each other. The practice is built on continuous dialogue, and most decisions are the result of extended conversations rather than individual positions. Also, we are a couple so we need to agree on what to have for dinner, the groceries, etc.

When’s the last time you laughed hysterically?

When we saw the first prototype of a product we worked on with a company. It was so hilariously bad it was funny. Honestly, this is often the case. Developing a good product takes a lot of time and many prototypes.

What’s your biggest vice? Your greatest virtue?

Vice: Being too critical. Sometimes it’s trying to see and notice only what doesn’t work.

Virtue: Persistence in questioning assumptions, even when it complicates outcomes or slows processes.

What’s been the hardest part of your career so far?

Maintaining a critical position while remaining within the system is structurally challenging.

What grounds you, and what invigorates you?

Grounds: Each other, research, evidence, poetry, and direct engagement with materials and their histories. Invigorates: Encounters that shift perspective, collaborations with communities that challenge the limits of our discipline, and our very own way of looking at things.

To read more from the 2026 CULT100 honorees, see the full list here.

In New York, where space comes at a premium and even the most relaxed rooms can feel over-curated, a new destination has arrived with distinctly human touch. Australian rug purveyor Armadillo’s flagship—a 4,000-square-foot exhale perched above Madison Square Park, offers a repose from the bustle of Broadway, and a means to dissolve city pavement into something softer underfoot.

Tastemaker and chef Romilly Newman offered her eye to the space, in her first foray into spatial design. “Styling a room and making a dish are exactly the same thing,” Newman tells CULTURED. “It’s all about taste: layering, and adding things that interact with each other, but may not be the most alike.”

Inside the 1123 Broadway showroom, Newman conceived of a world where the brand’s sensibility—clean and cool—could flourish IRL. Starting today, guests are invited to experience the building’s original 1897 pine floors creaking tepidly—remember, this is a place with a heritage-packed past—while lime-washed walls and sculptural curves move the line into the present. “The space is stunning. It has such big windows, natural light, the curved walls, and I wanted to add in that warmth, depth, and some of my more traditional styles,” Newman explains.

Rugs are displayed like garments, with carefully studied draping suggesting a waterfall of polished pieces—a new color and material for each discerning decorator. “In shaping the flagship, we wanted to create a space that feels warm, tactile, and deeply intentional, where these pieces can be experienced in a more personal way. Romilly Newman’s intuitive, layered approach helped shape a sense of atmosphere that reflects the evolving language of the brand.” Armadillo Creative Director and Co-Founder Jodie Fried says.

The new space is sure to attract to both trade insiders and the design-curious, a natural extension for a neighborhood punctuated by world-class architecture studios, galleries, and hospitality destinations.

Newman’s work isn’t quite done yet. “A room is never truly finished—I’ll always keep adding things,” she says with a smile. That ethos lingers in the showroom. Nothing feels too precious. Instead, Armadillo’s New York home is like one of Newman’s well-set tables, each element there to be handled—with care.

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In a way, the 129 fashion shows Dries Van Noten staged as the creative director of his eponymous brand from 1986 to 2024 have prepared him for this moment. But the Belgian designer, now 67, is the first to admit he’s also in entirely uncharted territory. 

Van Noten is calling me from the Palazzo Pisani Moretta, the 15th-century Venetian palace he and his partner Patrick Vangheluwe acquired last year. When sketching out the possibility of opening a foundation in Van Noten’s name, the couple had first envisioned staying in Belgium, the country where they had always lived and done business, and finding a space that could serve as a blank slate—“neutral, not too big, and not too complicated.” The palazzo, with opulent interiors dating from the 18th century, is neither. 

But Van Noten is finding joy, freedom even, in the challenges the setting imposes. “We can only blame ourselves if we have a lot of work now,” he admits. “We didn’t stop to have a quiet life—that was what scared me most.” Indeed, although he handed the reins of Dries Van Noten over to Julian Klausner in 2024, the designer still handles the brand’s beauty arm and supervises store design with Vangheluwe. And the Fondazione Dries Van Noten, which will open its inaugural presentation on April 25 before planned renovations in the fall, is certainly keeping him occupied. 

“The Only True Protest Is Beauty,” curated in partnership with Geert Bruloot, will take over 20 of the palazzo’s rooms with more than 200 works. (Bruloot has also organized an exhibition opening March 28 at Antwerp’s fashion museum MoMu on the Antwerp Six: the now-mythical constellation of Belgian designers Van Noten belongs to.) The through line of the show, and of the foundation, is craft. Over the last quarter century, the designation has become a loosely applied buzzword, linked both to the fetishization of the handmade in algorithmic times and the growing cachet of collectible design. In the presentation, Van Noten reclaims its latitude, orchestrating a free-associative parcours through his own rolodex of favorite makers—from artist Steven Shearer and sculptor Peter Buggenhout to ceramicist Kaori Kurihara and designer Christian Lacroix. 

Like the clothes that made Van Noten famous, the foundation promises to be ebulliently eccentric and thought-provoking without feeling pretentious. As the countdown to its unveiling narrows, the designer sat down for a candid conversation about his next chapter.

When you were at the helm of your brand, you were known for these terrifically organized days—biking to your office, listening to Studio Brussels radio on the way in, ordering the dish of the day at dinner. It’s a kind of structural rigor that was also reflected in your uniform of the dark blue sweater and khaki or dark blue pants… 

Let me take the blue scarf off so you see… It’s a dark blue sweater.

I love it. Since retiring in 2024, are you allowing yourself a bit more freedom with how you spend your days, or are you still very structured? You obviously have taken on this massive new initiative with the Fondazione opening in a few weeks.

It’s busy! I just came back to Venice yesterday evening. It was our fashion show in Paris, and I still have to be present there and look with one eye at what’s happening. My partner Patrick and I still do the stores and beauty and perfume. It would be difficult to let it go completely, but this is just like three or four days a month—a perfect quantity. Then of course, we have this new adventure, which forces us also to be quite structured because a lot of things are happening. We made our life not easy by saying, “Okay, in a few months’ time, we’re gonna change a palace into a museum-level exhibition venue, where you have air conditioning, lighting, etc…” 

It’s intense, but we really enjoy it. Some people said to me, “Oh, you’re gonna be so happy now that you’re retired. You have so much time for your gardening, your flowers.” I already saw myself only meeting people of 70 years old and talking about flowers and gardening and what you have to prune, and I said, “No, this is definitely not for me.” I need young people around me, I need that kind of creativity and busy-ness and problems for which you can find an answer. It’s structured, but the nice thing is we don’t have that terrible rat race of four fashion shows a year, ready or not. Now we can decide our own rhythm. Nobody obliges us to do so many exhibitions, presentations, and talks a year—it’s our own choice. And I have to say living in Venice also gives you a lot of space in your head. 

I’m curious about the choice of Venice. You’re so deeply associated with Belgium, and Brussels and Antwerp, and you’re choosing Venice for this next chapter of your life. You’ve spoken about it as a “living city,” which is interesting since so many people see it as a postcard or associate it with the past. You also chose to acquire a pre-existing building instead of going with a clean slate. 

We took the decision seven or eight years ago that I would stop [working as creative director] at 65. Covid happened, so it delayed that until 66. We had time to think about what exactly we wanted to do and where. Originally the idea was to do it in Belgium; I was very open to that. Then we said, “Why don’t we try to live in another country? We lived our whole life in Belgium, it would be nice to experience something else.” We’ve always loved Italy—we have our summer house here in the south of Italy. So we said, “Okay, let’s discover a few cities here.” We went to Rome, to Florence, to Venice. 

Venice was really a surprise. Everybody thinks they know it because you go every two years for three days to Venice. You say, “Oh, there’s a lot of tourism, but it’s beautiful.” You see interesting exhibitions, and you’re off. We had the chance to stay in the apartment of friends for 12 days, and we discovered a really different city. You see that Venice is also a living city, a working city. There are really good schools, a lot of young people. There is really something bubbling.

In the past, young people very often left immediately after their studies to Milan or Rome because Venice was too expensive. Now Milan and Rome have become far more expensive than Venice, so some people also stay here. I found it really intriguing because of course you have that confrontation of people from all over the world coming here, buying a palazzo, and just living here a few months a year, and the more underground scene with small galleries and grassroots situations. The combination is really interesting. Where you have a big machine, like the Biennale, you automatically have also those small things disturbing it. 

What has living in Venice brought out of you? 

You have no idea what difference it makes that there’s no cars, no traffic lights, no bikes. It’s super cliché but it creates so much more space in your head. You can focus more on things which are important in life. In Belgium, I was easily traveling two hours a day to the office and back. You count what you can do in those two hours here in Venice, and it’s really fantastic. And there’s the mentality of course—I was working like crazy in fashion. My partner and I always worked nearly seven days a week. But in the year, year and a half that we’ve been in Venice, we already have many more friends. People are very open—there is a mentality of sharing and having nice moments together.

Going way back, can you speak to me about your earliest relationship to craft and making? I know your family was steeped in the garment industry. 

My mother and father always were looking at how furniture was made, how embroidery from tablecloths were made… And growing up in [a fashion store], you look at how fabrics are made, you see how garments are made. It was a part of my education. And I think having had the career of a fashion designer, I was spoiled because you have the possibility to look at beautiful things to use for your own creativity. And doing a fashion show is like a piece of theatre. You’re talking with people who are doing lights, with people who are doing music, makeup, hair… so many different disciplines. You’re talking with fabric developers. It’s a very technical thing. And we always lived in listed houses where restoration was always a challenge. So craft has always been part of me.

Have you ever thought about picking up another craft?

I never had time to do that. When there was a little bit of time, we were in the garden, which also helped me to stay in balance as a human, because fashion is so hard and so fast that it was necessary to have something which literally puts you with your two feet on and in the ground. That kept me alive. The other passion I have is food and cooking and making jams. Again, it was really a counter-reaction to the job of fashion designer, because it’s a kind of instant gratification. You work one or two hours, then immediately you have 36 pots of jam or a nice meal which you can share with people. In fashion, it’s always mid- to long-term. 

I wonder if in your fascination with other forms of craft there’s a connection to your choice to make prêt-à-porter only, and not couture. To make the everyday poetic, not just the special occasion. 

The reason I wanted to do prêt-à-porter, not couture—although we made quite a lot of pieces which were nearly couture-like—was really because I don’t like to make things which are theoretical. I like to make things you can wear. I always compare my job to a good baker—if you make a beautiful cake but nobody eats it, what’s the point? With the foundation, we have the intention to show all different aspects of craft. You have a lot of craft which gets very close to collectible design, to the point where collectible design has gotten on the same price level as contemporary art. It’s very good because a lot of people can live from it and it can push things very far. On the other hand, I appreciate as much people who make a simple chair that you can sit on. And even a comfortable chair, not just a beautiful chair you look at. In the presentation, I know already that I took a little too much from the gallery-level of design. I really want to create my own network of people who are doing things which are daily things, which you actually can use. 

You have to see this presentation as an exercise. We don’t know yet exactly what our voice is going to be. I want to see where we can use our resources, what would be the most helpful and most important. The idea is not only to put up beautiful exhibitions in the future, but also really to support. Is it with organizing talks? Is it just inviting young artists and artisans here as residents? We don’t know yet. We started the whole project in the beginning of September, so it’s already going really fast. In the meantime, we are working on the restoration of the palazzo, which is going to start in October. 

The Dries Van Noten voice in fashion was so singular. I think it’s interesting that you’re saying that with this foundation the voice is still becoming. You’re still understanding the DNA of it.

I think it would be pretentious to say, now already, “I know exactly what I’m going to do.” 

I’m sure you also researched and visited other foundations. Maybe you don’t know yet what it will be exactly but was there anything where you felt like, “I don’t want it to be this.”

The last thing I want is to do only exhibitions and presentations, although we’re starting with a presentation. But between April and the end of September, when the restoration starts, we knew that we only had time to do this type of presentation. It’s a starting point; from that, we’re going to do talks with schools, we’re going to organize meetings, we’re going to do something around music. We’re going to invite a bunch of young winemakers from the Veneto to tell their story, and the wine is going to be served in glasses made by young artists and artisans in Murano. Those types of things. Not everything has to be prestigious, beautiful, chic, complicated, and expensive. We can also do very simple things.

It seems like an insistence on life. It can be a little more ephemeral and not necessarily go down in history. Can you tell me how you discovered the artists and makers featured in this inaugural presentation?

I always look very attentively. I have a very visual memory. Of course I also use my phone. I have a huge quantity of pictures of things I like, and they’re all mostly in my head. In the evening you see something quickly on Instagram, you buy a magazine, you see something there, and you start to collect. Then you have things from the past, which you’ve known already for a long time. It will be very interesting to see how everything comes together because in my head I’ve really created a kind of narrative between the pieces we’re showing and with the palazzo. 

How does the process compare with putting on a runway show? Do you feel like it’s prepared you for this, or do you feel like the challenges are very different?

Of course you have to be organized. But the creative part—putting things together—is a different way of looking. It’s not only your own work—you’re putting together the work of others. A fashion show is your own collection, and the only person you have to be happy with at the end is yourself. Here you have to work with people who created something. We have the responsibility, on the one hand, to respect the vision of the designer or the artist or the craftsman, but also that it makes sense in the totality. This has sometimes been a little bit more difficult—to convince artists and artisans to trust us. It is going to be a kind of confrontation. Seeing an artwork in a white cube in New York and in a palazzo here in Venice are two completely different ways of looking. We will have to learn a lot, I think.

Are there any exhibitions that you and the team have seen recently that have been inspirations for you? Especially ones that engage with a site. 

I went to the Fondation Cartier in Paris, where you also see the combinations of all different things, which is very interesting. Of course there is also Homo Faber, which I thought was very inspiring. Although I know that the last one—“The Journey of Life”—by Luca Guadagnino was kind of controversial… Some people really liked it, some people thought that craftsmanship was too much on a pedestal, that it was too beautiful and that the production was sometimes overwhelming the pieces. 

You’re mentioning beauty in the context of Guadagnino’s Homo Faber exhibition. The title for your inaugural presentation is “The Only True Protest Is Beauty.” I know that it’s based on a song by Phil Ochs, but I wonder how you see the place of beauty right now in a world that is honestly filled with ugliness.

The full sentence of Phil Ochs is: “In such ugly times, the only true protest is beauty.” But we asked for permission to use only the second part, because I said, “I don’t want to work nearly one year around a sentence which starts with something so negative.” Of course, beauty can also be kind of an escape. But pure escape is not right either, because you have to be realistic. In that way, the word protest is also very good. Beauty for me is so much more than just prettiness. The concept of beauty is so universal; for me, to use this as protest, to survive the ugliness of the world, I think is a very good thing. And this presentation is kind of a search. [The sculptor] Peter Buggenhout, for example, was really surprised that we dared to call his work beautiful because he wants to make people feel uncomfortable. But I think it still results in something beautiful. It will be the first thing you see when you come into the palazzo. 

Can you tell me a bit about your relationship to optimism? Optimism can sometimes be seen as naïve, but I think it can also be a form of protest—to progress, to move forward, to continue. Do you feel like this exhibition has taught you anything about that?

For me it’s about looking forward. Beauty is also moving forward. Beauty is not standing still. I always look to the past; I respect it enormously. But I always try to do things looking toward the future. I always tried to make beautiful clothes, but when they were not different from the ones before, I was kind of unhappy, because I wanted to challenge myself to stay relevant by moving forward. Sometimes big steps, some seasons smaller steps. 

Can you tell me about the rationale behind the fashion pieces you’re including in the presentation? You have Comme des Garçons, Christian Lacroix, but also the Palestinian designer Ayham Hassan. 

Lacroix is really one of my loves. I did the collaboration with Christian Lacroix, and I had the frustration that the collection we did never really came alive because of Covid. So I knew I still wanted to do something else, because I think he really deserves to be put in focus—to show the pieces and the way that he made them, the kind of madness, the craftsmanship… The end of Lacroix was also partly because of this: He couldn’t stop sometimes. What was interesting was that Lacroix, of course, is more traditional beauty. And at a certain moment I saw some outfits of Comme des Garçons, especially from after 2015, when Rei Kawakubo decided not to make outfits anymore for the catwalk that were meant to be worn. They became more theoretical, nearly sculptures of fabric, movement, and emotion.

It’s two completely different starting points—one based in a historical, nearly costume world, and the other really starting from a very theoretical approach. But at a certain moment they grow toward each other. It’s surprising how much they reinforce each other. And with Ayham, I loved what he was doing immediately when he came out of fashion school. I think he’s one of the best examples of what we are saying here, with the “Only True Protest Is Beauty.” You can’t only mourn in your life. With what is happening in Gaza, you can’t only mourn. You also have to think about tomorrow. Fashion in that way is the best escapism. It feeds your dreams for tomorrow by creating something beautiful.

Can you tell me what it’s been like to observe the fashion world with a bit of remove over the past two years? Do you like what you’ve been seeing? Who are you following? 

I follow it the same way that I follow all other crafts because for me it’s also a kind of craftsmanship. I also have several people who follow things for me—especially the young designers. We are building our network also to go out to even the young people who are not really so visible. But I’ve never really been part of the fashion world. We were always very happy to be in Paris or London, and maybe go to one or two parties. But I was even more happy to go back to Belgium, to my garden and my dog, and start working on the collections. Of course, fashion the last few seasons has been super complicated with all the changes of designers. But also nice things are happening now. Meryll Rogge is doing a good job [at Marni], I’m very happy for her. I’m very happy for Julian, who’s doing a fantastic job with our brand. 

And speaking of beauty, what was the last thing you saw that you found beautiful? 

The moon yesterday when we arrived in Venice. That’s enough for me.

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If Paris Fashion Week is about silhouettes and exacting stitches, Matter and Shape is about everything that undergirds them: the chair one collapses into after a show, the glass that’s raised in a toast, or the light fixture that casts an ambient glow over an afterparty. From March 6–9, the design salon returns to the Jardin des Tuileries for its third edition, transforming two pavilions into a temporary city of objects.

Under the curatorial eye of the fair’s artistic director Dan Thawley and founder Matthieu Pinet, the showcase has positioned itself as fashion week’s design-literate pause. The models on this fair floor aren’t strutting through the space, but all the better to see their details up close.

This year’s theme, “scale,” prompts visitors to think both smaller and wider—of the micro gestures of craft and the macro systems behind how these pieces are made. Aside from examining the physical volume artists choose to work in, it also asks, How does human capital affect the scale of production of an object? With this question in mind, the show explores contemporary designs achieved through ethical and sustainable practices. Across more than 4,000 square meters, collectible design will sit beside practical luxury (think Ann Demeulemeester’s Serax homeware) and emerging studios alongside contemporary mainstays (22 System by Bocci), in a deliberately transversal mix that mirrors the way we actually live.

After Dior’s runway and before Louis Vuitton’s, Matter and Shape sets up its singular locus for passing viewers. Sample exhibitors will include lighting by Lindsey Adelman Studio, a reading room developed with Saudi-French cultural institution Villa Hegra, and a collaboration with Byredo, which has its fragrances diffused throughout the fair. The Zara Home x Dreamin’ Man café also returns, joined this year by a new dine-in restaurant concept from Balbosté.

The Matter and Shape design fair will be open to the public from March 6-9 at La Caserne –12 rue Philippe de Girard. Registration for tickets is available here.

The opening of “A World in the Making: The Shakers,” at the Institute of Contemporary Art, in Philadelphia, closely follows the theatrical release of the feature film The Testament of Ann Lee, starring Amanda Seyfried. Blakey Bessire excavates how the hand craft traditions and devotional practices of the Shakers do—and do not—resonate in our own digital age. 

“A World in the Making: The Shakers”

ICA Philadelphia | 118 South 36th Street, Philadelphia, PA
Through August 9, 2026

Last week I was served ads for “sustainable fly tying” and a digital “improv quilting” workshop—a small data point in a broader return to handicraft and renewed attention to skill sharing. There’s an urge to build things together right now, but we’re trapped in the singular, online performance of it. Against this backdrop, “A World in the Making: The Shakers” at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia arrives less as historical survey than contemporary interface. The exhibition sets up a relay between Shaker material culture and seven contemporary artists’ interdisciplinary work, asking what happens when communal structures are encountered through objects, archives, and bodies.

Here, calm translates most easily while discipline, belief, and labor resurface more unevenly. How does this interest in traditional handmaking sit within the sticky Venn diagram of the trad wife, the MAHA mom, and the curation of the homemade for public consumption or aspiration? Viewed today, craft starts to feel like a lifestyle signal rather than a shared practice. Are craft aesthetics stepping in where collective futures have stalled, offering atomized consolations in place of structural communality and holistic skill sharing? For the Shakers, “the world” was all that existed outside of their pacifist communal living structures. The appetite for Shaker-dom feels consonant with this idea of the collective or lack thereof today. In “A World in the Making: The Shakers,” that tension shows up most clearly in the contemporary works themselves, where Shaker belief is reactivated not as atmosphere but as language, gesture, and form.

Among the contemporary artists in the exhibition, I was most drawn to Kameelah Janan Rasheed’s three newly commissioned pieces. Together, they respond to Shaker design and faith through the archive of the probably queer Rebecca Cox Jackson, who created the first Black Shaker community in Philadelphia in 1858. Rasheed carries Jackson’s language forward as a communal practice, intervening in the Shaker archive rather than citing it. Two bright white cotton sateen scrolls drape from the wall, with detailed hand embroidery in blue silk thread from the last silk-producing factory in Philadelphia. Rasheed abstracts Jackson’s spiritual texts into glyphs, echoing the techniques of traditional Shaker women’s gift drawings—depictions of personal visions exchanged with fellow Shakers, rendered with geometric precision, symmetry and bold color palettes that could rival Hilma af Klint’s.

On Rasheed’s scrolls, the original words are no longer legible, accessible only through their new shapes and the works’ titles: And at the time I was told to gather home … the time had come for me to gather home (Rebecca Cox Jackson, 237); Under it, and spread about one yard around … It was all I seen. (Rebecca Cox Jackson, 99). In afar, a black-and-white collaged video piece, Rasheed layers Jackson’s, Roland Barthes’s and the artist’s own words with Shaker imagery—hands isolated in a connecting circle, colors inverted from white to black and back again: “I left home and arrived without origin”; “I found myself in the distance—blurry.”

If Rasheed’s work pulls belief through text and archive, Reggie Wilson’s dance piece, POWER – Every Movement is Sacred, a video installation based on a 2022 performance, brings it back to the body. Working with his Fist and Heel Performance Group, Wilson treats Shaker movement not as historical object but as living structure. It’s one of the few moments in the exhibition where communal life feels present tense, not archival—where Shaker-ness registers as something practiced rather than displayed. The choreography draws on Shaker forms and shout traditions from Black churches across the African American diaspora. Here, movement is both choreographed and devotional, reflecting on how embodied practices shape identity and community, and on the legacy of Rebecca Cox Jackson within Black Shaker tradition. To the right of the video are adjacent doorways, representing the organized movement of the two genders the Shakers believed in.

Shaker objects bring with them a gradient of legibility, and their uses were allowed to shift and change. But a power lies in tying this back together with the reality of their bureaucratic mysticism. The systems and structures that narrate the function of the objects: the ledgers, the choreographies, the proto data-visualization of gift drawings, the instructional clarity with which bodies were guided through space. For the Shakers, use value was allowed to shift and change without transgression. Labor followed community need. A sewing machine becomes a root cutter. A rocking chair becomes a functional wheelchair. Inclusion is a theme in both the Shaker objects and the contemporary works throughout “A World in the Making,” appearing again with an “elevator” shoe made by Shakers in Canterbury, New Hampshire, in 1890. The platform boot was developed for a community member with legs of different lengths, a personalized response to disability made uniquely for its owner.

Seeing “A World in the Making,” I felt like I was being asked to use the Shakers as a vessel for imagining community through intentional aesthetics. But what kept coming up for me are the shadows of institutional and supremacist structures that dictate daily life; fascist structures that create their own architectures and organizations of bodies and spaces. Maybe the darkness of our political reality, and the chaos just outside any museum’s door, is exactly what the show is pushing us to counter rather than the assembled formal beauty it shows—to investigate the power of a personal (and collective) belief system, whatever that might be. The exhibition doesn’t romanticize Shaker life but thematically points to expressions of faith channeled through everyday communal acts.

I want to think this is part of what’s brought Shaker culture into the collective conscience (The Testament of Ann Lee movie’s release early this year, and the upcoming $30-million construction of the Shaker Museum’s campus in Chatham, New York, for example). The beauty of the objects is just the surface. Their resonance comes from that tug of belief. Said the Shaker eldress Sister R. Mildred Barker, “I don’t want to be remembered as a chair.”

Blakey Bessire is a writer, artist and teacher based in New York. They are an editor of the literary annual NOON, a contributing critic to CULTURED’s The Critics’ Table and the creative director of the New York Sign Museum. Their novel, Nula, written in collaboration with Irena Haiduk, was published in 2025 by the Swiss Institute.

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A delightful anachronism hides in Paris’s Bastille neighborhood. Amongst the Haussmann-style façades that dapple the streets, a grove of juniper and maple trees conceal an entirely different kind of home.

The four-story abode, designed by the late Japanese-French fashion designer Kenzo Takada and his partner architect Xavier de Castella in the late ’80s and completed in 1993, is not easily categorizable. With its teak facing, traditional tatami floor mats, and Shoji sliding doors, it adopts the transparency of Japanese design, but the sloped ceiling louvers made of French oak belie a sense of space that feels entirely European. Takada envisioned the home as an oasis, a breath of fresh air from the whirl of city life, but it was just as frequently the stage to showcase his new designs and host elaborate parties. 

This encounter between intimacy and exposure made the storied abode the perfect place to stage Kenzo’s latest collection, designed by its current artistic director Nigo, during Men’s Fashion Week. Just like the home, the collection, unveiled on Jan. 21, deftly layers Japanese and Americana reference points. A kimono is reimagined as a tailored navy blazer. T-shirts and cardigans emblazoned with a varsity-style ‘K’ are paired with a flat lace up shoe, recalling the mid-century Japanese craze for American Ivy style. Even the presentation’s soundtrack, John Lennon’s Power to the People, nodded to Kenzo’s tasteful merging of influences.

Nigo, who has been with the house since 2021, envisioned the presentation as something of a homecoming. He transformed Takada’s former library into a makeshift archive, which showcased the collection’s vintage references through sketches, editorial, invitations, and vintage garments. Some of the new collection’s designs, like a colorful Kite bag taken from a 1986 Kenzo collection or a color blocked suit designed by Kenzo in 1991, were recreated wholesale. Others, like the floral embroidery from a pair of organza skirts first shown in Kenzo’s Spring/Summer 1994 collection, have found their way onto pearl snap cowboy shirts and red ballet-inspired slippers. A smattering of flannel plaids and large checked knits against a backdrop of neutrals and Prince of Wales wool keep the collection buoyant and playful.

Perhaps the most instructive piece is a wool coat, striped in hues of goldenrod, taupe, cream, and ecru. The caplet dangling from the jacket’s shoulders, with its tassels and whipped blanket stitch at the hem, has the uncanny resemblance of a well-loved family quilt, wrapped around one’s shoulders after a long day away.

As life speeds up, the ability to slow down has become life’s greatest luxury. Vestali Altars can help. Conceived by astronomer-artist Rose Theodora of Vestali Studio and launched in collaboration with creative director and arts patron Fairfax Dorn of Fairfax Dorn Projects, the new, limited-edition collaboration leverages ancient alchemical frameworks (sacred geometry, anyone?) in a series of contemporary furnishings. First up is the Alchemy of Metals Altar.

Each is formed from black volcanic stone and embedded with seven sculptural materials, designed to be engaged with—in tandem with candles, incense, florals, or contemplation. The objects are forged during their corresponding planetary hour and finished with the a sigil—like Venus for copper, the sun for gold, or the moon for silver. Ahead of today’s launch, Theodora and Dorn sat down with CULTURED to deliver a clarified take on the ancient traditions that have inspired their latest work and been collapsed into a single, functional object of devotion.

CULTURED: Vestali Altars sits at the intersection of design, ritual, and cosmology. What convinced you that this belonged within the world of Fairfax Dorn Projects?

Fairfax Dorn: We have always honored beautiful objects that have been created with high-quality craftsmanship. The power of Vestali Studios’s design immediately resonated with me, with the Alchemy of Metals Altar challenging us to think beyond form and provenance, and consider use as something spiritual and evolving. 

CULTURED: How did your experience collaborating with other artists influence your approach here?

Dorn: My background in working with artists, particularly through exhibition work and nonprofit organizations such as Ballroom Marfa, has taught me to nourish artistic vision. With Rose, that meant honoring the depth of her astrological and artistic practice, while creating a platform via Fairfax Dorn Projects for the altars to be understood for contemporary spaces.

CULTURED: The altar is traditionally a sacred object. Walk us through your inspiration for producing something that’s meant to be both functional and deeply symbolic.

Dorn: An object or design that is sacred doesn’t have to be formalized, it can be embedded into daily life. Historically, altars were central to the home, not removed from them. This project reclaims that purpose. The symbolism of the altar is grounded in the functionality of the design—the metals and the construction of the form. Each part of the altar, including negative space, has a practical and metaphysical purpose.

CULTURED: The Alchemy of Metals Altar launches in a very limited Founders Edition of 10. How do you imagine collectors living with, and using, these pieces?

Dorn:  These objects are not something you view passively; they invite pause, exploration, and introspection. Whether a collector engages daily or periodically, I see the altar becoming a root, an anchor, a rock, a source, in the home, something that evolves as a reflection of its owner. A source where clarity and connection with self can grow. 

CULTURED: Rose, how did astrology guide the reinvention of the altar?

Rose Theodora: We’re living in a moment of extreme externalization with constant exchange and engagement, yet people are deeply craving inner coherence. The altar historically functioned as a point of alignment between the human and the cosmic. Astrology guided this reinvention by offering a structure that is both symbolic and precise. The planets are timeless archetypes, but they’re also rhythmic forces we can actively engage with. This deeper sense of connection with ourselves and the world around us is one that is urgently needed, and the Alchemy of Metals Altar seeks to restore that dialogue.

CULTURED: These altars are described as “operational sculptures.” What does “operational” mean to you here—spiritually, materially, and psychologically?

Theodora: Operational means functional: a system that requires engagement. The altars are not symbolic in a passive sense; they have procedure and purpose. They respond in kind; spiritually, they’re insistent on participation and presence. Materially, the altar operates through metals, geometry, and designated elemental stations. The sculpture is incomplete without use. Its meaning unfolds through practice. Psychologically—like good architecture—a well-designed object can reset the nervous system: it reduces noise, guides navigation intuitively, gathers the mind, and creates cadence.

CULTURED: Given that astrology and alchemy are central to this collection, how did you go about translating these systems into a physical object?

Theodora: I utilized astrology and alchemy as design constraints, and approached the collection the way alchemy itself works—by distillation. Astrology and alchemy are vast systems. The challenge was to hone in on their essentials—functional components that don’t lose integrity. The seven planetary metals, the three alchemical principles (body, mind, soul), and the central axis are all translations of abstract systems into tactile form. The geometry is intentional, the materials are symbolic, and the timing of fabrication was just as important as the design itself.

CULTURED: The altar incorporates seven planetary metals. Was there one planet or metal that felt especially important to you in this process?

Theodora: Copper, Venus, and the Sun. Each planet is fundamental to the altar as an ecosystem. Even when they look the same externally, the objects feel different in the hand. Saturn carries weight. Jupiter feels expansive. In alchemical practice, copper is Venus’s metal: the elemental basis of brass. While our alloy is proprietary, I chose brass for its harmonizing, integrating quality. It isn’t just decorative—it’s structural. Venus is the collection’s through line: the principle that refines, reconciles, and brings disparate elements into relationship through unification. Gold is the Sun’s metal—incorruptible, unmoved by contamination. It doesn’t force change; it holds integrity.