From the Same Cloth | When Swiss luxury brand Akris debuted its signature Ai bag in 2009, among its distinguishing traits—a trapezoidal shape and origami-like folds—was its material: woven horsehair. Known for its durability and subtle luster, it’s also a textile frequently found in works by Colombian artist Olga de Amaral. More than a decade and a half later, Akris’ creative director Albert Kriemler, a longtime follower of Amaral’s, finally had the chance to partner with the 94-year-old artist herself on the brand’s fall 2026 collection.
“I always wanted to do a collaboration with an artist who works with textiles, who is as obsessed with fabrics as I am. Fabrics are everything to me, and they are too for Olga,” says Kriemler, from Akris’ headquarters in St. Gallen, Switzerland. While the brand has worked with several notable artists in the past, this was its first collaboration with a textile artist. Rather than simply draw on Amaral’s aesthetic sensibility, the resulting collection evokes notable works from her extensive career, many of which featured in a recent retrospective at the Fondation Cartier. A showstopping cocoon coat constructed from shimmering gold jacquard, for example, pays homage to Amaral’s “Estelas” series, cotton weavings transformed with gesso, acrylic paint and gold leaf into rigid sculptural objects.
Dresses of layered organza tiles and appliquéd squares, meanwhile, echo Amaral’s “Alquimia” tapestries, while horsehair—in the form of a swingy fringe skirt—also appears. Kriemler, known for his spectrum-spanning use of color, found a like-minded spirit in Amaral’s own palette of magenta, turquoise and emerald, but perhaps their shared hallmark transcends the runway: their trusted aids. Kriemler, who has worked with many of his pattern makers and tailors for more than two decades, expresses his admiration of Amaral’s own reliance on her longtime studio assistants: “She called them ‘seven lives and fourteen hands.’ It’s such a beautiful description.” akris.com —Laura Neilson
L.A. Story | Celine’s recently opened Rodeo Drive boutique injects a big dose of Parisian style into the City of Angels with Haussmann-style oak parquet and speaker systems by young French designer Matéo Garcia. Visitors to the 5,500-square-foot location also have access to exclusive in-store offerings, such as a Rectangle bag in exotic porosus crocodile.
Celine Rectangle bag in porosus crocodile, price upon request; celine.com
Watch This Space | Before any furniture is built, any millwork commissioned, design duo Jane Keltner de Valle and Giancarlo Valle create petite models of the rooms they’re envisioning, populated with handmade twig-and-twine chairs, cardboard staircases and clay sofas. One of these maquettes appears on the cover of their new book, “Studio Valle de Valle: Interiors,” though it takes a moment to register that it’s not life-size. The meticulous character of these dollhouse-like constructions, which echo Jane’s childhood toys, demonstrates the exacting attention the pair give to their work, whether it’s bringing a breezy freshness to a Rhode Island seaside pile or referencing local wildlife in a sleek Mexican hotel villa. “Judd with the corners softened” is their description of the pine stools in their own Brooklyn loft, but it’s also an apt metaphor for their broader sensibility, which appreciates found objects and custom furnishings alike. $75; rizzoli.com
The Write Stuff | Every year, Montblanc releases a High Artistry collection that exemplifies the fountain pen brand’s innovative and technical prowess. Behind the scenes, a small group of stone setters, engravers, goldsmiths and other craftspeople has worked to materialize the intricate plans dreamed up by the creative team, a years-long process from start to finish. This artisan atelier, in Hamburg, is led by Thorsten Hering, who joined more than 40 years ago as a 16-year-old apprentice. Training for roles in his department requires extreme patience: it can take three years just to learn how to grind a nib. “As much as these pieces are objects of art, in the end we are looking to produce functional writing instruments,” says Alexa Schilz, Montblanc’s Director of Writing Culture and Brand Strategy. Montblanc also turns to its sister maison, Van Cleef & Arpels, for hand-enameling, tricky on a cylindrical surface. But the thousands of hours each artisan puts into each pen certainly pay off. The latest High Artistry range, inspired by Japanese culture, includes an edition of five featuring, among many other details, a reproduction of 17th-century artist Kanō Tan’yū’s tiger panels from Kyoto’s Nanzen-ji temple and an edition of one laced with black-onyx and pink-sapphire sakura blossoms and topped by an enameled silver pheasant guarding a diamond. montblanc.com
Room With A Cru | Now open on Lake Como, Miralago Luxury Apartments is Villa d’Este La Collezione’s first branded residential concept, occupying the restored former Hotel Miralago, a graceful old presence on Cernobbio’s waterfront. Its eight apartments pair the privacy and independence of a home with housekeeping, turndown service, breakfast delivery and access to Villa d’Este’s floating pool, fountain-filled Renaissance gardens and the Sporting Club. The most persuasive amenity may be tucked inside each kitchen: a wine cabinet, personalized before arrival from the hotel’s legendary cellar of some 17,000 labels. Guests can specify their preferences—or surrender to the sommelier’s judgment—then have a private chef prepare dinner. Miralago, it seems, takes the house pour personally. miralagoluxuryapartments.com —James Haldane
Alfresco Appeal | Stephen Burks, a designer with multiple solo museum shows to his name, has been collaborating with Roche Bobois for more than a decade. Catalina, his latest collection for the French brand, is an outdoor range that mixes ceramic-top tables and comfy lounge seating, all with slightly flared steel legs that give the pieces some kick. roche-bobois.com
Modern English | Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” employs the double cherry as a metaphor for an adoring couple: “two lovely berries molded on one stem.” American jewelry brand FoundRae has taken the conjoined fruit as the signature symbol for its new London store, in a nod to the Bard’s legacy and the wild cherry’s proliferation across the UK. It punctuates the ceiling of the Mayfair boutique, where cherry-red display cases hold the brand’s gem-studded offerings. It’s also rendered in diamonds and garnets on an 18-karat gold medallion, available exclusively at the London shop, which is FoundRae’s first stand-alone address outside the United States. foundrae.com
Shore Enough | Comporta, on Portugal’s Alentejo coast, is a slow burn of a hot spot. “Rice, pines, dunes, ocean,” says German real estate developer Dietrich E. Rogge, describing the area. Across 35 acres, Rogge is constructing Atlantic Club Comporta, a group of 24 villas available for sale or vacation rental, accompanied by all the amenities of a five-star hotel. Rogge recruited Comporta resident Jacques Grange, designer for the likes of Yves Saint Laurent and Francis Ford Coppola, for the interiors; Grange, in turn, brought in landscape designer Madison Cox to install native plants. As Comporta’s hospitality sector grows—Sublime Comporta recently doubled in size and Na Praia, designed by Studio KO, is set to open in 2027—Atlantic Club’s siting will ensure that it maintains its views of the rice fields and the wild Atlantic beyond. atlanticclubcomporta.com
Next Move | At the 1925 Paris Expo that birthed art deco, Marie-Louise Idestam-Blomberg won a gold medal for her chess set, which reimagined the pieces almost like avant-garde fairy-tale characters. The Finnish-born sculptor had studied in both Stockholm and Paris, but her early arts education took place during her St. Petersburg childhood, thus the Russian-peasant garb of her tubby pawns. Her downcast queens are clearly expecting, as she was at the time. Long out of production, the set will be reissued in pewter and brass by Svenskt Tenn this fall. svenskttenn.com
Stare Quality | David Bowie was a serious collector, with an eye as distinctive as the personas he created. In 2016, Sotheby’s transformed its New Bond Street galleries for “Bowie/Collector,” revealing the private taste behind one of music’s most carefully fashioned public images. A decade later, the collector again becomes the collected. Bowie confronts his image in this uncompromising 1996 self-portrait, rendered in acrylic and charcoal on paper. Its raw handling and psychological intensity reflect his fascination with German expressionism and affinity for forceful figurative painting. He collected works by Frank Auerbach, David Bomberg and Leon Kossoff, and once said of Auerbach’s work, “I want to sound like that looks.” At once masklike and exposed, the portrait feels less like celebrity self-fashioning than another inquiry into identity from an artist moving among genres. Estimated at £30,000-£50,000, “Self-Portrait” appears in Modern British Art at Sotheby’s London on October 16: Bowie looking back at himself—and directly at us.—J.H.
Big Ideas | Art dealer and entrepreneur Elizabeth Dee has dreamed of curating a show in the landmark Breuer building on Manhattan’s Upper East Side—now Sotheby’s global headquarters—ever since she arrived in the city more than two decades ago. That vision only strengthened when Dee launched the Independent Art Fair in 2010, featuring a group of curators and gallerists in dialogue with artists, with the aim of challenging the traditional jam-packed art fair model.
“I think I’ve reached out to every single occupier of the building over time,” says Dee. That list includes original and longtime resident, the Whitney Museum, followed by the Met Breuer and the Frick Collection.
The stars finally aligned for Dee after Sotheby’s acquired the building in 2023, in what she calls a “fortuitous” development. Sotheby’s CEO Charles F. Stewart, whom she describes as “a visionary and an ideas man,” immediately took to the idea when she pitched it. “It checks so many boxes for him, including how the entire art ecosystem can better work together,” says Dee.
The fall iteration of the fair, subtitled “20th Century,” is 75% bigger than the previous edition, with 57 exhibitors. Taking place September 24-27, it will coincide with the 60th anniversary of the Breuer’s debut. “Every inch of the building will be curated by Independent,” says Dee.
Look for what Dee calls “rigorous in-depth presentations,” such as the display from Berlin’s Esther Schipper highlighting 40 years of “relational aesthetics” and the collaboration between new exhibitor Lévy Gorvy Dayan and veteran Nahmad Contemporary, who will stage works by Yves Klein and Lucio Fontana respectively, in front of the building’s trapezoidal fourth-floor window. Klein and Fontana happen to have been lifelong friends and mutual admirers who, Dee notes, “shared this obsession and fascination with physical space and breaking boundaries of traditional painting.” independenthq.com—Eileen Kinsella
