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04.14.25

Fair Report

In Milan, Objects of Common Interest and Marsèll Team Up on an Exhibition That Uses Materials as Spatial Interventions

When the Italian boutique leather brand Marsèll opened its showroom a year and a half ago on Via Spiga, Milan's luxury shopping street, it was an exercise in restraint — similar to the shoes and bags on offer, the interior, by Berlin's Lotto Studio, took a minimal approach to form, with almost all the emphasis on the interplay of high-end natural materials like glass, stone, stainless steel, and walnut. That elegant spareness has made it not only the perfect visual expression of the brand, but also the perfect neutral backdrop against which to stage designer interventions during the Milan furniture fair. Last year Marsèll welcomed Gonzalez Haase AAS into the space, and this year, Objects of Common Interest — the New York– and Athens–based practice of Eleni Petaloti and Leonidas Trampoukis — did the honors, with a two-floor installation called Adaptive Ground that "explores the relationship between space and material."
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03.05.25

Fair Report

The 9 Best Things We Saw at Frieze Week Los Angeles 2025

We would be remiss not to address the relatively somber mood the LA wildfires cast over this year's Frieze week, an event that typically traffics in the commerce (and celebration) of extreme wealth while, for the rest of us, turbo-charging the sleepy LA social calendar to a welcome, if exhausting, degree. There were still sales to be made and parties to attend, to be sure, but everything felt a little quieter, a little more contemplative — and important to everyone to somehow acknowledge the context in which the fair was happening, whether in content or conversation.
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03.04.25

Fair Report

A Wonderfully Cohesive Debut From Tobias Berg, Sight Unseen’s Best in Show Winner at Greenhouse, the Stockholm Showcase for Emerging Design

At the Stockholm Furniture Fair earlier this winter, we found the thing we're always searching for at these things: a designer whose work is so sophisticated and ready for the market that they're bound to be in the conversation for years to come. (A booth full of bangers, if you will.) And so our Best in Show at Greenhouse award this year went to Tobias Berg, a Norwegian designer with one of the most assured debuts we've seen in years.
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02.13.25

Fair Report

25 Projects We Loved at 2025’s Stockholm Design Week

This year marked the fifth time I've attended the Stockholm Furniture Fair, so at this point I consider myself something of an armchair expert in the machinations of this small but mighty fair. All over town this year, there were conversations about the future of SFF, which has contracted in recent years due to a mix of factors — including the pandemic, a protracted recession, and the rise of fellow Scandinavian fair 3 Days of Design — and now seems to be in a transition period, with a new director at the helm (Daniel Heckscher, formerly of Note Design Studio) and a ticking clock at its heels. (The fair was recently sold by the city of Stockholm and the current fairgrounds are due to be demolished in 2027 to make way for housing). And while I still maintain that an imminent location change ought to push the fair's organizers to move the dates to a more welcoming time on the calendar (would love to never Google "is there snow on the ground in Stockholm" again), I also began to reframe my thoughts this year about what success really means against the backdrop of a global design calendar.
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02.03.25

Fair Report

All the Best Things We Saw at This Year’s 2025 Fog Design+Art Fair in San Francisco

Traveling to last month's FOG Design+Art fair was a particularly charged experience for me this year — held two weeks after the wildfires that devastated Los Angeles, where I've been hibernating all winter, it was something of a reprieve; a chance, both literally and figuratively, to take a breath after all that happened here. Of course I only had the privilege to do so because I was unaffected materially by the fires, unlike so many others facing horrible loss, but it's just to say that traveling to a fair in the wake of a tragedy was not such a frivolous event as it may have been in past years. I was eminently more grateful just to be there. Seeing good work was merely the icing on the cake.
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12.20.24

Fair Report

Now In Its 24th Year, Dutch Design Week Remains One of the Best Places to Scout Playful, Innovative Objects

In its 22nd year and featuring more than 2,600 designers over 120 venues, Dutch Design Week continues to impress us. Our favorite objects from Eindhoven this year delighted by building upon history and what has come before — both in terms of personal memory as well as a collective — while also presenting surprising innovation, and, in many cases, a sense of playfulness. Below were just a few of our favorite exhibitions and pieces.
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11.05.24

Fair Report

Three Design Exhibitions We Can’t Stop Thinking About from Paris Art Week

The so-called “City of Light” first earned its sobriquet in the 19th century, not only for the city’s early adoption of street lamps, but for its contributions to science and art. Remaining true to its reputation, our three favorite shows from Paris Art Week boasted innovative design pieces against the backdrop of unique or unlikely venues, from the famous and historical Rue de Seine, to Karl Lagerfeld’s former mansion, to a 17th century Gothic-style secular temple to humanism.
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10.02.24

Fair Report

11 Things We Loved at September’s Paris Design Shows

Earlier this month, at Paris Design Week and its concurrent shows, we were especially drawn toward work that explores material richness and depth — the use of upholstery to add dimensionality, tactility, and coziness, as well as furniture that highlights the grain and various textures of wood. Attention to detail is seasonless but there’s something about the change in the air, the way autumnal light shifts your perspective and what it attunes you to. Below, 11 of our favorite designers, launches, collars, and more from the week.
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09.13.24

Fair Report

Everything We Loved at Collectible’s First Design Fair in New York City

Last Sunday afternoon, as the first NYC edition of the Brussels-based contemporary design fair Collectible was just about to wrap, one of the fair directors paused in front of our booth and asked me how I thought the show had gone. “There are designers here we’ve never heard of,” I marveled, intending it as high praise indeed: For a European fair to show up on New York’s doorstep and show us something new (especially a fair planned in less than four months), well, I’d call that a success. Collectible, which took place at the burgeoning FiDi creative hub WSA, managed to both assemble a cornucopia of new ideas and draw a crowd, all from across the Atlantic. We brought our own dose of novelty to the show, with a booth that — while similar to our NY Design Week exhibition — showcased a new batch of 11 cabinets by 11 different design studios, all punctuated by hardware from my recently launched showroom, Petra.
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08.16.24

Fair Report

This French Riviera Design Showcase Delivers On Emerging Talent

For those lucky enough to be sunning themselves in the south of France right now, there are two sister design shows worth peeling away from the beach for. Split across a pair of historic and impressive — yet totally different — venues in the neighboring Riviera towns of Hyères and Toulon, the annual Design Parade festival and competition brings together established and emerging designers as part of two season-spanning exhibitions. Design Parade has long been a particularly great opportunity to spy up-and-coming French talent, and there's more than enough to get us excited in this year’s edition.
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07.11.24

Fair Report

A Decade In, 3 Days of Design in Copenhagen is a Must-Visit on the Design Fair Circuit

There's an increasing sense in the design world that 3 Days of Design in Copenhagen is a must-stop on the design fair circuit — some have argued even moreso than Milan. And while we didn't make it over this year, we could see from our inboxes that there was no shortage of wonderful things to see at the 11th edition this past June. The annual festival featured more than 400 exhibitors, bringing together emerging, experimental voices and established global giants, sprayed across the city, each stop just a bike ride — or sometimes a boat ride — away. While Danish and Scandinavian talent was on full view, a roster of international designers also had a strong presence. The theme this year — Dare to Dream — brought forth new interpretations of classic forms and inventive uses of unusual materials. Here were some of the highlights for us.
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