“People tend to think of Mount Fuji as symmetrical and always covered in snow,” says Ryutaro Hashimoto, the CEO of Japanese hotel business Gora Kadan. “But it can look completely different, depending on the season or the time of day. It changes minute by minute.” Hashimoto’s new opening, Gora Kadan Fuji, is a stunning 42-room hotel in Shizuoka that looks directly onto Japan’s highest peak.

Even a single night here is enough to reveal Fujisan’s many faces. Red at sunrise and a forbidding silhouette in the dark, it can look curiously unfamiliar from different angles, particularly before it has had its seasonal dusting of snow. During a stay at Gora Kadan Fuji, it can be hard to take your eyes off the mountain, which feels alive as the light shifts and the colours change.

Mount Fuji became a World Heritage site in 2013. This includes not just the mountain but a wider area that takes in Shinto shrines, lakes, springs, waterfalls and pine groves. Not that the Japanese need to be told that their tallest mountain is important. They have been worshipping and viewing it for centuries. It’s hard to overstate how powerful a symbol this active volcano is for the country: it’s everywhere, reproduced in myriad representations.

Rising to almost 4,000 metres of conical perfection, it towers over the Kanto plain, where Tokyo sits, and is visible for miles. Along with cherry blossoms and red shrine gates, Mount Fuji has long been a visual shorthand for Japan. Travellers are thrilled when they catch a glimpse of it from a plane, a Tokyo skyscraper or the bullet train to Kyoto.

The mountain has been painted, drawn and printed countless times, both in classical art and on a million fridge magnets. This includes Hokusai’s celebrated ukiyo-e work “The Great Wave Off Kanagawa”, part of his popular series Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji (look below the foaming curl of the wave and there it is). That image, surely the most famous in Japanese art, is also on the ¥1,000 note. Meanwhile, Naoki Ishikawa, Japan’s great mountaineer-photographer, has been capturing Fuji in mesmerising detail since he was 19.

Now legions of tourists are following. Some can’t resist the urge to climb it, even though an ascent is no afternoon stroll – much to the irritation of local rescuers. Most visitors, though, are happy simply to look at Fuji and capture its languid slopes from a safe distance.

Monocle’s trip starts at Tokyo Station. We take a 42-minute Shinkansen ride to Mishima, a small town in Shizuoka, southwest of Mount Fuji, which is famous for its mineral water. From there, we drive up to Kawaguchiko, one of the lakes that make up the Fujigoko (Fuji Five Lakes) around the mountain’s base. It’s not far but we have already moved into the neighbouring prefecture of Yamanashi.

If you want a classic view of Fuji, this is where you should come. Oishi Park on the edge of the lake offers uninterrupted views of the mountain across the water. The lake is enormous, fringed by hotels, restaurants and museums, including one that’s dedicated to the work of kimono-dyeing artist Itchiku Kubota and another that’s devoted to antique European music boxes and mechanical instruments.

The food to eat in this part of Yamanashi, particularly on a cold day, is a steaming bowl of hoto noodles. These chunky, flat noodles were said to have fuelled samurai before they went into battle. Today you can come to Hotou Fudou’s popular Kawaguchiko restaurant and sit on tatami mats under hefty wooden beams, as an iron pot is brought to your table, overflowing with fresh vegetables bubbling in a miso-based broth.

We pass another Hotou Fudou branch on the outskirts of Fujiyoshida, a nearby town that’s known for textile manufacturing. This one, which looks like a cloud outside and a cave inside, was designed by Takeshi Hosaka and has become a local landmark.

From Kawaguchiko, we head towards Lake Yamanaka, making a stop at one of the stations on the Subashiri trail, a popular route up the mountain. Serious climbers do this on foot but the gate can also be reached by a winding drive that snakes to almost 2,000 metres above sea level. Clouds can sometimes obliterate the view but it’s still a muchloved hiking trail and is teeming with wildlife.

The final stop before the hotel is Fuji Sengen Shrine, one of many in the area dedicated to the mountain and the deity within. Climbers customarily purify themselves here with cold water before beginning their ascent and Shinto priests perform rituals and ceremonies to keep the gods happy and climbers safe. This shrine, thought to date back to 807 CE, is a starting point for the Subashiri route. It was damaged by the volcano’s last great eruption in 1707 and rebuilt in 1718.

The ubiquity of shrines around the base of (and on) Mount Fuji is a reminder that it is more than a backdrop: in Japan, it has huge spiritual significance. Climbing it used to be the preserve of mountain-worshipping Shugendo ascetics. According to Shinto lore, mythical princess Konohanasakuya is enshrined in the mountain. Believers hope that this goddess can keep volcanic activity at bay; known as the “blossom princess”, she is also associated with cherry blossoms, the ultimate Japanese symbol of life’s transience.

And so to Gora Kadan Fuji, a new build with staggering views. You can see why Hashimoto wanted to build here. Gora Kadan Fuji comes with serious pedigree. The original Gora Kadan hotel, which opened in 1948 in the small town of Gora in Hakone – a cool-clime retreat not far from Tokyo – incorporated the summer villa of a member of the imperial family. That hotel, which was acquired by Wasaburo Sato in the 1950s, was renovated in 1989 by architect Kiyoshi Takeyama, who preserved the old building and added a six-metre-high, 120-metre-long colonnade. It made sense that the hotel’s special brand of hospitality should have another location.

The place that Gora Kadan eventually chose is in Oyama in Shizuoka, on a 50,000 sq m site, 800 metres above sea level, which looks out west to the mountain with nothing but forest in between. Once the team had located the underground hot spring that they were hoping for – 1,500 metres down – construction began in earnest. In the heady days of Japan’s economic bubble, the temptation might have been to build a bruising block with as many rooms as possible but Gora Kadan wanted something less monumental: 39 rooms and three separate guest villas (one with a private swimming pool). Architect Ikuo Ogitsu did everything to make the building as unobtrusive as possible from the outside.

Guests enter through the discreet main gate to be greeted by staff wearing kimonos (even the general manager, Tomoyuki Miyagawa, spends much of his day in traditional garb), at this point unaware of what will greet them as they turn the corner: a gasp-inducing, up-close view of Mount Fuji that few would have had the privilege to see before. Everything is designed around this panoramic vista: the lobby lounge with its open fire, library, swimming pool, hot-spring baths and restaurant. Can there be a more inspiring way to start the day than having breakfast on an open terrace overlooking Mount Fuji?

Ogitsu’s design blends polished concrete and wood. A corridor, inspired by the colonnade at the Hakone hotel, is flanked by towering cypress columns, its light filtered through shoji paper screens. There is art everywhere; photographer-turned-architect Hiroshi Sugimoto is represented with two framed works.

Gora Kadan Fuji asks nothing more of its visitors than that they relax. A dip in the hot spring, indoors or outside, might be followed by a swim in the pool or a massage in the spa. The bath lounge has newspapers and books about Japanese art and Mount Fuji. Guests take off their shoes at the entrance to their room; inside, there are tatami floors, low beds and handmade lanterns. The walls are finished in the traditional way with juraku mud plaster and the ceilings are lined with cedar planks. Some of the suites have their own outdoor hot-spring baths, while others have indoor tubs with hot, alkaline water gushing from the taps.

Energetic guests who crave more than relaxation can be connected to local guides who will accompany them on a hike. The golf course next door, meanwhile, boasts scenic fairways, just 12km from the mountain. Food is a big part of Gora Kadan Fuji’s appeal (and another reason not to leave the grounds during a stay). Sushi is served at an outpost of the highly regarded Sushi Sho, while teppanyaki is overseen by Kanda, a three-Michelin-star restaurant in Toranomon.

Monocle opted for a counter seat at the kappo restaurant. It’s a pleasure to watch chef Yuki Nakata at work. A veteran of the Hakone hotel, Nakata is so dedicated to his craft that he travels near and far to forge relationships with producers and source the best ingredients. The menu changes as the seasons move but dishes on our visit include gingko nuts on pine needles, vinegared vegetables with persimmon and white miso soup with Matsuba snow crab dumplings. There is an impressive wine cellar but this delicate cuisine calls out for one of the local sakés on the menu, such as Yukige or Isojiman, both from Shizuoka.

Gora Kadan’s style is easy-going but supremely attentive. There are both young local staff and seasoned hospitality veterans who take the role of the okami that you would find in a good ryokan.

Another Gora Kadan will open in Kyoto in 2030 and there are tentative plans to open overseas. That elusive international location will have to fit the Gora Kadan criteria. “We want to find a place where the Japanese ryokan philosophy feels natural, rather than transplanted,” says Hashimoto. “Cultural integrity is difficult but it’s important and also very exciting.”

He isn’t interested in scaling up for its own sake or opening too many hotels. “I’m trying to create meaningful places where architecture, landscape and atmosphere feel in harmony,” he adds. “I see my role less as a matter of running a hotel than about cultural responsibility – working out how the quietness, precision and respectful nature of Japanese hospitality can work for a new generation of travellers.”

There’s nothing like spending a bit of time on the shop floor to get a firmer grip on the finer details of running a business. I could argue that I’m ‘out on the floor’ in the widest possible sense most days of the year but manning our 10 sq m shop and café in St Moritz on Christmas Eve with my colleague Aude is another thing entirely. 

First, it’s huge fun being the business owner ringing up orders for hot chocolates and boiled wool vests. It’s better still when there’s a line out the door, only Aude running the La Marzocco and I doing my best tap dance routine to keep everyone happy while they wait for perfectly poured flat whites and matchas. It’s during these moments when people are browsing and scrolling that you can strike up conversations and get the clearest picture of Monocle’s very global community of readers, listeners and heavy coffee consumers.

I met the former CEO of a Turkish bank and we had a long discussion about the current state of Istanbul and London and the finer points about where the world is heading. Yesterday, a Korean mother and son came in looking for nothing in particular but were somehow focused on outerwear. The son was rather taken by our Arpenteur wool and angora coat and its volume but the mum was having none of it. After explaining all of our collaborations and own-brand products to her, I could sense that she was wondering where “Made in Korea” was amid all of the weaving and sewing in Portugal and Japan. I guided her toward some T-shirts and that caps we developed with the brand Kappy from Seoul and before I knew it she had a cap on her head and was ready to pay. Along the way I found out that they were on a European tour and would be heading back to their home in Honolulu. 

A bit later on, there was an invasion of handsome gentlemen from Abu Dhabi. First question I asked: “How long have you been in St Moritz?”. The second question I kept to myself. “How on earth do you all manage to keep your beards looking so sharp? Did you fly in with your barber? There is no such grooming service for Gulf men up here in the Engadine, so please tell me how you all look so trimmed and tweaked?” As Aude prepared Americanos and hot chocolates for the nine of them, the lead in the group asked a lot of questions about Monocle and what I thought of Abu Dhabi and if we would ever open there. “Perhaps,” I said. “But where?” Some 20 minutes later we were still weighing up the street versus mall and whether we should go to Dubai first before opening up in Abu Dhabi. “What do you think of a drive-thru Monocle,” I asked, somewhat cheekily. “Of course, do it. Yalla!”

While the Gulf is definitely on the cards, I can reveal that the next two Monocle cafés will be in North America and Asia and in cities beginning with T. Along the way we are likely to do pop-ups here and there but by this time next year we’d like to have added at least another three cafés to the existing lineup.

Should you find yourself up in St Moritz over the coming week, please pop in to say hello and if you happen to be in town on 30 December, please join us from 17.30 for a bit of holiday cheer at our shop and on the terrace of the Hotel Steffani. I’ll be happy to discuss café and retail expansion plans if you’ve got a location or two on offer and my colleagues Aude and Iulien will be around to ensure that you’re fully signed up as a paying subscriber for 2026. If I don’t see you in a few days, then all the best for the New Year and, as ever, thank you for your support.

Enjoying life in ‘The Faster Lane’? Click here to browse all of Tyler’s past columns. 

It’s opening night at Y & Sons’ new outpost in Omotesando and the party is in full swing. There is saké, craft beer and sesame tofu on offer as the brand’s ever-stylish cohort mingles with loyal customers – many in kimonos worn with an effortless sense of cool. 

A decade after the brand was founded by the long-established kimono company Yamato, the Omotesando shop marks Y & Sons’ third location in Japan, following Kanda and Kyoto. Channelling the brand’s familiar aesthetic – black herringbone parquet floors, crisp white walls and oak fixtures – the space is filled with ready-to-wear pieces, collaborations including Graphpaper and Norwegian Rain, alongside bolts of original fabrics from across Japan – the starting point for the brand’s signature made-to-order kimono service. 

The lineup extends to traditional fans and straw crafts as well as Batoner knitwear, Kijima Takayuki hats and footwear from Aurora Shoe Co, composed with a mix-and-match approach to styling in mind. And with its quiet backstreet location and garden, the boutique offers a calm escape and a fitting backdrop for exploring the brand’s fresh approach to the kimono and the culture surrounding it. 

To mark the opening of the Omotesando shopfront and the brand’s 10th anniversary, Monocle spoke with Gen Hiramatsu, who has been involved with Y & Sons since its 2015 launch. After serving as brand manager from 2016 to 2023, he now oversees the Kimono Arch / Y & Sons shop in Paris – the label’s first international location.

How has Y & Sons developed over the last decade and what’s in store for the next?
The brand started out catering to the men’s kimono market and has since grown with the aim of promoting kimono as everyday fashion. We’ve gradually expanded our network of shops as well, with Kyoto in 2020, Paris in April 2025 and now Omotesando. We have also begun collaborating with companies outside of the industry of traditional Japanese wear, such as Graphpaper and The Inoue Brothers, which helped us develop products and reach a customer base that we otherwise would not have been able to. Over the next decade, we want to continue growing our retail network while also presenting an even wider range of styling and production.

The label has a presence in Kanda, Kyoto and now Omotesando. How is each location connected to the brand?
Kanda is home to the brand’s flagship shop, a place where we share our worldview. The area’s blend of new and old aligns with our mix of tradition and innovation. Our Kyoto outpost is in the Shinpuhkan complex, alongside the Ace Hotel, and serves as our gateway to the world. And as the centre of fashion in Japan, Omotesando was chosen to express the kimono as a fashion piece.

Y & Sons is celebrated for contemporary kimono styling. What tips do you have for integrating kimonos into modern, everyday wardrobes? 
While valuing the kimono’s original form, we believe that almost any item can be paired with traditional Japanese clothing. 

A kimono is usually worn with a nagajuban undergarment but pairing it with a band-collar shirt adds a modern feel while maintaining the kimono’s classic appearance. We also carry shoes by Aurora Shoe Co – the rounded Middle English models resemble the silhouette of geta and zori sandals. 

By respecting the beauty of traditional Japanese clothing while incorporating the right amount of modernity, we propose ways of styling kimono that can easily become part of daily life.

Y & Sons Omotesando is now open at 4-13-4 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo. yandsons.com

In Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, the fictional city of Thekla exists in perpetual construction, with “cranes pulling up other cranes, scaffoldings that embrace other scaffoldings, beams that prop up other beams”. When asked why the building takes so long, the inhabitants reply, “So that its destruction cannot begin.” New Yorkers will recognise this logic. Here, shopfronts come and go but temporary scaffolding is forever.

That’s why the city’s Department of Buildings (DOB) recently unveiled six new designs that seek to reimagine the eyesore – technically known as sidewalk sheds – so that they take up less space, let in more light and to do away with the structural crossbars that have a tendency to take out distracted pedestrians. 

The current hunter-green Board of Safety and Appeals (BSA) sheds have been darkening New York streets since the 1970s. There are roughly 8,400 installed around the city, rivalling bodegas for urban ubiquity. Combined, the sheds would stretch nearly 400 miles – almost double the route length of the New York Subway and nearly as long as a CVS receipt. 

These structures protect pedestrians from falling debris but they also reduce New Yorkers’ quality of life. “For too long, outdated and cumbersome sidewalk sheds have blocked sunlight, hurt small businesses and cluttered our neighbourhoods,” said New York’s outgoing mayor, Eric Adams, in a recent statement. 

Designs on the future

“One of the great things about walking in New York is looking up…” says Vishaan Chakrabarti, the founder and creative director of Pau (Practice for Architecture and Urbanism), one of the two studios, along with Arup, whose new pavement-shed designs seek to reduce the city’s clutter of steel and plywood. Pau’s “Baseline Shed” uses a pitched roof to let in sunshine. Alongside a raingutter and the potential for a platform to be added above for workers, not to mention the elimination of crossbracing, it’s the kind of bright idea that the city needs. “These sheds will feel more like a canopy than a cage,” says Chakrabarti. “It will be a game-changer for everyday New Yorkers … [it] should heighten the experience of the city.”

Arup’s designs, including the “Flex Shed” and the “Air Shed”, continue with the existing horizontal idea for the sake of flexibility, with adjustable heights and widths to accommodate the city’s variable streetscape of trees, stoops, garbage bins and newsstands. 

This is not the first time that the DOB has tried to replace the BSA sheds. In 2009, it held a global Urbanshed design contest that was won by Urban Umbrella – you might have seen its elegant white arches in front of luxury shops and hotels. There are currently 105 Urban Umbrellas around New York. Given that the cost is at least double that of a standard shed (which are often more affordable than actually making repairs), the design is beautifying the city at a snail’s pace. Kenneth J Buettner, the president of York Scaffold Equipment Corporation in Queens, tells Monocle that the fault of the Urbanshed contest was that the winning design could only be used by its owner. What is promising about this new raft of designs is that “they are owned by the city and will be put into the public domain”, meaning that if the designs pass the rigorous scrutiny that still lies ahead, they will be able to be installed by any contractor. 

But Buettner warns that the new designs face structural and economic challenges. “Whether the concepts can prove flexible enough to truly accommodate the variety of New York’s streetscapes is one question but whether they can achieve this at a price point that rivals the existing BSA structures is quite another,” he says. 

Policy and process

Design alone is not a silver bullet. Policy changes will be equally crucial. After all, more than a third of pavement sheds are in place because of Local Law 11, which states that buildings more than six storeys high must survey their façades every five years. Along with the new designs, City Hall has also announced the recommendations from the Façade Inspection & Safety Program, an engineering study into ways the current requirements could be revamped to reduce the number of sheds.

One recommendation that is set to go into effect in 2026 is the raising of the inspection period from five to six years – a move that Buettner says “should cut a fifth of the city’s sidewalk sheds straight away”. 

But there are other ways to speed up the process. For instance, many scaffolds are in place for inspection purposes – but surely these superficial surveys could be conducted from the ground with binoculars or, better yet, by drones.

Shedding sheds for quality of life

The task of reducing shed numbers is formidable but it’s also popular. New Yorkers have suffered long enough. The annual Sheddie award, given to the longest-standing shed, went this year to a structure that has been up for 25 years; in 2023, a shed in Harlem was finally removed after 21 years – long enough for a child to be born, grow up and move to Los Angeles. 

In a city of such vaunted atmosphere, no New Yorker should have to endure such gloom. Ironically, the wonderfully sharp, blue-hued and hyperreal quality of the city’s sunlight is probably because of the refractive, jewel-like effect of its façades. But New York’s skyward obsession needn’t shroud its streets in darkness, at least, not permanently. Necessary as these sheds are, improvements and policy and design can make a big difference. 

But the consequences go beyond quality of life; they also shape the city’s global image. In 2023, when Donald Trump arrived at Manhattan Criminal Court to surrender to authorities, crowds and photographers struggled for a clear shot of this American first because the scene was obscured by a forest of sidewalk sheds. New York deserves to be dramatic – let’s not obscure its moments in the sun. 

Thankfully, things look to be going in the right direction. In the near future, locals and visitors walking down New York’s avenues might begin to notice something different: pavements that feel wider, a blue sky and a city that – while still under permanent construction – seems just a little less cluttered and claustrophobic. 

Blake Matich is Monocle’s digital sub editor and a regular contributor. For more from Blake, click here.

I like it here, this island of time between Christmas and New Year. While it might not be a tropical paradise, it is somewhere that you can regroup, shrug off the excesses of Christmas and prepare for the new year. It’s a good spot for long walks, for reading, for making lists, for setting out your ambitions for the year ahead. (Hold on, aren’t these the same as last year’s?)

While Monocle never sleeps – for starters, there are newsletters and radio shows that require our writers, editors and producers to be on duty – it does go a little quieter here. You check your email inbox and wonder if there’s something wrong with the server as the usual deluge of messages is now a trickle.

This island also offers a vantage point from where you can look back across the year and commit to memory the moments that mattered.

So, from a year of Monocle travels and escapades, here are a few Tuck high points. I hope you have a good list to reflect on, too.

1.
Paris. In February, we opened our café-shop-radio studio setup on Rue Bachaumont (with a separate bureau just a hundred metres away) and it was love at first sight. People often ask me what Monocle stands for, what makes us who we are. Now I can reply, “Go and have a coffee at the Monocle Café in Paris and all will become clear.” That’s because it’s cosy, cool without straining, welcoming and part of the neighbourhood. It’s us.

2.
Throughout 2025 I went to trade events in Cannes, Abu Dhabi and Milan and more, and loved them all. OK, Mipim in Cannes in March was a little wet (I was dreaming of opening my first rosé of the year but ended up on a terrace wrapped in a blanket with rain-soaked shoes). But we met so many good people – those who build and transform our cities with care – that the monsoon almost didn’t matter. On the other hand, Milan for Salone in April was perfect. The sun shone, the design world gathered and there was a joyful generosity at play. Trade shows rock. Well, the ones I get myself invited to.

3.
Jakarta for Monocle’s The Chiefs Conference was fun and revelatory. I had never been to the Indonesian capital before and neither had many of our delegates. Even those who lived a few hours away in Singapore and Vietnam also turned out to be Jakarta virgins. The talks were perfect but the afterparty was insane – everybody dancing in a tiny bar with the best DJ. It’s a good lesson: go to new places with an open mind. Pack your dancing shoes. Get a ticket to a Monocle event in 2026.

4.
Speaking of which, The Quality of Life Conference in Barcelona. This was next level in a very real way. We arranged a surprise to close the conference with a troupe of castellers entering the auditorium to build a human tower, or castell. In fact, they created two towers in quick succession, tiny children clambering to the pinnacle each time. There was something about this literal example of having each other’s backs, of supporting one another, of taking the weight on your shoulders to let the young soar, that just got to people. There was cheering and there were tears.

5.
Palma. I am there every chance I get and, after Barcelona, we took a team of Monocle Patrons to the island to show them some of the places that have hooked me and the rest of Monocle. So to the folks at Cap Rocat, Ohlab (that’s you, Jaime and Paloma), Hotel de Mar, Arquinesia, La Pecera, Can Vivot, Can Bordoy – thank you.

6.
There’s been a lot of trips to the Gulf this year – the Monocle Weekender in Abu Dhabi, the World Governments Summit in Dubai and, along with my colleague Luke, we also made it to Sharjah. One night we were taken around the city by our hosts – on foot – and as the dhows bobbed on the creek and the light flicked to gold, I thought: I will add this day to my list of 2025 highlights. And I have.

If we don’t speak before we leave, enjoy your time on this island and see you back on the mainland in 2026.

To read more columns by Andrew Tuck, click here.

I am suspicious of people who use coasters. What reason could there be for keeping a tabletop spotless, gleaming and with no signs of life? Clean like a desk in a corporate office, carrying no evidence of the meals it has carried, the drinks that have been spilt or the drawings and letters that have been etched upon it? Such a piece is devoid of soul.

Tables play a unique role among furniture. They are not sat upon, nor placed upon, nor planted somewhere purely for admiration but are gathered around: they are a meeting point. Conversations happen over tables. People fall in love across them. They support us, silently, as we write, draw or sort out the paperwork that we’ve neglected for far too long. And as the clocks change and the evenings draw in, they become the centre of our social lives. Once the weather is too chilly to meet in parks, it is our tables that we are drawn towards. They sustain our relationships and support our endeavours. So why are we so keen to make them look as if they have carried nothing at all?

In the Istanbul-based workshop of Uniqka, a leather atelier established by designers Kerem Aris and Merve Parnas, there sits a large, leather-covered table in milk-tea brown that was crafted decades ago by Aris’s artist father. It is a hugely valuable artefact, both for the quality of the materials and its craftsmanship. Yet Aris and Parnas are refreshingly un-precious about preserving it. The leather covering is beautifully maintained, supple and soft to the touch, but it also shows indentations and coffee-cup rings collected throughout the decades, carrying the spirit of the generations of creatives who have sat around it to put their ideas to paper. No table can ever replicate this one; it is the sum of every person who has sat at it.

My own coffee table is also a thing of deep history and imperfect beauty. I had it made by a carpenter in Istanbul from pieces of cherry-tree wood taken from an 19th-century Ottoman chest. The artisan polished it to a lustre – and once it was safely in my house, I set about dampening that sheen down with the wear of daily life. Mugs of tea and bottles of beer have left crescent markings over its irresistibly irregular surface. A pen leaked over one corner and the stain, once vibrant, is now merging into the rich browns of the wood. The cat has added a few scratches and I love the table more with each new flaw.

Even mass-produced tables benefit from wear and tear – a little battering can turn the blandest of pieces into a far more beguiling prospect. A round metal side table has been much improved by the splashes of paint it gained when I inexpertly redecorated my flat during the pandemic. After five years of board games and roast dinners, my Ikea dining table has some large and very satisfying scratches.

So as the nights close in and tables once again become the centre of our social lives, consider throwing those placemats out. No pristine tabletop or set of decorated coasters will ever be as interesting or as sentimental as the marks that trace out our lives.

Mistletoe is a rather tenacious parasite so wresting it from a tree trunk can be difficult. Yet I relish that slightly hazardous Christmas Eve task – usually with my sister leading the charge, Niwaki shears in hand. By this point in December, even the most verdant bits of festive greenery in our home will have lost some of their freshness and need an injection of glossy foliage. Our bosky hunting ground of choice is a Cambridge college’s orchard of gnarled and stooping apple trees. We’re quite sure that the gardeners won’t mind us giving their holly bushes a light pruning (though I admit that there’s a thrill in walking home with a sack of spiky, possibly illicit branches).

At the table, the leafy haul becomes a wild, unruly centrepiece for supper. It’s a rather Dickensian affair in my house, with candles burning and general merriment, but on Christmas Eve I stop short of preparing a big meal. The night before the big day is about bowls of soup, glasses of ice-cold fizz, smoked salmon sourced from Jollys of Orkney and the umami-rich (as well as hilariously named) Gentleman’s Relish, coupled with Stilton and pickled walnuts. When else will you find the time to truly savour a perfectly ripe persimmon or a clementine, with its leaves still clinging to the stalk?

Rushing to catch up on your wrapping, hurrying to the shops in search of the perfect ribbon – it has become a tradition to dash about on Christmas Eve. That final lap of a department store before closing time can feel like an Olympic pentathlon. For me, real branches are an antidote to the final burst of commerce that defines this time of year. What is it about the contours of a tree that remind me that Christmas is as old as the hills? Evergreens call to mind the resurgence of life at the moment of winter solstice, of Yule and the mysterious tradition of English orchard wassailing (singing to wake up trees). They make me think of Naturchläuse in Alpine spots such as Appenzell, where people dress up in costumes of moss, pine cones and fir branches to drive away winter.

Festooning your home with real greenery is worth the effort. To my table display, I like to add some deep-red amaryllis and berries. Their hit of colour contrasts with the white linen tablecloth, soon to be stained by glasses of barolo – as well as the imprint of long conversations and songs, which are always unique to each year. There’s a subliminal urge to bring fresh flowers to a table. The perishable nature of blooms and the fact that glossy cuts of holly are only here for a fleeting period help us see that the moment that matters is now. They announce, “Savour us before we wilt.” 

These occasions when tables are laden with produce and promise also remind me of Dutch 17th-century depictions of edible delights. On a recent trip to the Museo del Prado in Madrid, I discovered Clara Peeters’ “Still Life with Flowers, a Silver-Gilt Goblet, Dried Fruit, Sweetmeats, Breadsticks, Wine and a Pewter Pitcher”. It shows a table heavy with food, rendered with glistening, almost photorealist clarity, even though it was painted in 1611. Peeters and her contemporaries, such as Osias Beert the Elder, were hooked on capturing the essence of a moment. With its sense of anticipation for a night of revelry, it’s a scene that still packs a punch.

Sophie Grove is the editor of ‘Konfekt’. Pick up the winter issue today – it’s full of snowy forays, recipes and ideas for the season.

Savvy architects in the Swiss Alps are carefully positioning residences to make the most of striking lake and mountain vistas. As a result, many of these buildings are imbued with a strong sense of place and connection to the wider environment, despite many being cosy winter hideaways, where owners and guests spend their time indoors. Monocle hit the slopes to visit a selection of holiday homes that are making the most of a prime position in the Swiss countryside.

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1.
GSTAAD
Chalet Saanen Gstaad

French architect and designer Thierry Lemaire is known for his angular furniture and impressive portfolio of high-end interiors, which includes a renovation of the Elysee presidential office. His latest project, however, is a little more personal. In the Swiss town of Gstaad, Lemaire teamed up with his sister, interior designer Sophie Prezioso, to renovate and redesign a chalet that she purchased as a holiday home. Lemaire looked after the furniture and architecture, and worked hand in hand with Prezioso on interior design and decoration.

The 16th-century building was originally a farmhousf and the pair wanted to keep its rustic character while introducing contemporary design elements. They remodelled the interior to introduce more natural light. Partitions were removed to create more space for the dining area, while the old barn on the first floor became the main bedroom. “It was important to ensure that the space was comfortable and welcoming,” says Lemaire.

The architect wanted to create “”a cosy and timeless environment”. To do so, he chose materials and furniture in contrasting styles and textures. Rough meleze wood and smooth Hainaut stone was used throughout, while old paintings and vintage furniture mix with more modern pieces; one of the architect’s Koumac armchairs is placed beside a large window, creating a relaxing spot to enjoy views of the snowy landscape.

The result? An Alpine holiday home that feels contemporary but still reflects the original qualities of the building. “It’s a house that is somewhere between elegance, authenticity and preciousness,” says Lemaire.
thierry-lemaire.fr

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2.
SCHIERTSCH
Aux Losanges

In February, the mountain village of Tschiertschen will receive an influx of art enthusiasts. An exhibition of works by Swiss sculptor Hans Josephsohn will open at Aux Losanges, a residence that doubles as an arts venue. The strickbau was renovated by London and Zurich-based practice Caruso St John in 2017 and has been at the centre of the village’s cultural life since the mid-20th century. Built as a home in 1869, the structure served as a restaurant (known as Cafe Engi), exhibition and concert space.

Its future hung in the balance until Zurich-based couple Armin Zink and Stephane Lombardi, who used to visit Cafe Engi after hikes, purchased the property in 2015. A plan to turn it into a holiday home changed when the town’s mayor suggested they give it a “public dimension”. “It set Zink and 4 Lombardi’s imaginations alight,” says architect Adam Caruso. “So we created a house that works like a turn-of-the-century salon: it is a private residence but there are concerts and exhibitions where some of the interiors become accessible to the public.”

At the heart of the public areas is a double-height foyer with a concert grand piano and panoramic windows. Guests can choose from one of five large bedrooms – each with a distinct identity – that are complemented by four common rooms. The architects also designed built-in beds and cupboards, which were inspired by the traditional painted furniture of Swiss farmhouses. “By containing a diverse set of interiors and atmospheres, the house is a world in itself,” says Caruso.
aux-losanges. ch

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3.
LAKE BLAUSEE
Blausee Treehouses

The first thing that strikes you about the small Alpine lake of Blausee is the vibrant colour of its azure waters. “It’s a trick of the light,” says Stefan Linder, who co-owns the lake and the surrounding nine hectares of land. “The colour is created by the sun reflecting against the forest on this side of the mountain. It refracts against the bottom of the lake and creates this amazing blue.” It’s about as postcard perfect as Swiss scenery gets; a crystalline pool surrounded by mossy green boulders and lush pine forests that sprawl up the towering mountain peaks encircling the lake.

Blausee’s picturesque qualities have been attracting visitors from around the world to this corner of the Bernese Oberland for more than a century. The land was purchased in 1878 by Swiss businessman Johann Caspar Leemann-Boller, who built a hotel on the lake’s shore and added an alpine freshwater trout farm a few years later. Both are still running; the latter is Switzerland’s oldest producer of freshwater trout and regularly named the country’s finest in taste tests.

Eight years ago the previous owner was on the search for a buyer. “He was 72 years old and there was nobody in line to take over after he retired,” says Linder. “He asked me to find a solution because there were various interested foreign buyers but he was keen that it stay in Swiss hands.”

Linder teamed up with fellow entrepreneurs Andre Luthi and Philipp Hildebrand to buy Blausee. The lake remains one of only a handful of the 1,500 in Switzerland that is privately owned. Visitors can enter the surrounding park if they pay a small fee, which is put towards maintaining the land and its walking trails. Linder has overseen the introduction of a handful of new structures to the park over recent years, including a small lakeside cafe and shingle-roofed lake house that was designed by Zurich-based architect Thomas Hildebrand. This year the latest addition to Blausee was unveiled; three wooden cabins hidden within a dense thicket of trees that adjoins the hotel. Each cabin can be hired in its entirety by guests who are looking for an experience that will immerse them in the natural landscape.

Hildebrand is also behind these new structures. Each has vast, floor-to-ceiling windows looking out onto the surrounding woodland and, once the leaves have fallen, the mountainsides beyond. “What’s really special is how the views change according to the season,” says Hildebrand, who positioned the cabins to optimise their outlooks. Connecting their inhabitants with Blausee’s spectacular natural landscape was the architect’s main priority when working on the project. “”Our daily lives keep moving further and further away from nature and that has created a real longing for it. I wanted to tap into that.”
For inspiration, Hildebrand drew heavily from his time in Japan. “My partner is half Japanese so we usually go there every year,” he says. “Japanese people have a really spiritual way of connecting to nature and their homes have a more symbiotic relationship to the natural world. In Switzerland, our relationship to nature is more pragmatic. So I wanted to combine those two sensibilities.”

The buildings were constructed using locally felled pine wood, which also forms the interior and exterior cladding. For the bathrooms and flooring, Hildebrand opted for the same stone that makes up the mountainsides surrounding the cabins: a deep grey Mitholzer-K.ieselkalk limestone sourced from a quarry located a few kilometres up the valley. The cabins were decorated by Danish-Swiss interior designer Ruth Kramer, who also runs the Briicke 49 hotel in the mountain village of Vals.

She chose the furnishings to complement the views, with a soothing shade of pale duck egg blue for the walls, slate grey and mossy green textiles and wooden furnishings from Denmark’s Carl Hansen & S0n and India’s Phantom Hands. The interiors are warmly lit by lamps from Santa & Cole and Michel Anastasiades, while a wood-burning stove in each cabin adds to the cosy atmosphere. “We wanted to create something calming and timeless,” says Kramer. “To allow people to unplug and give the feeling of being a bit off-grid.”

The cabins were prefabricated by woodworkers in the nearby town of Frutigen and took seven months to construct. Once the foundations were fully prepared, the modular elements were lowered onto the site using a helicopter and slotted together. “This is a really modern construction and wood has come really far with this kind of prefabrication,” says Hildebrand. “That is what I love about these kinds of projects: using local, traditional materials allows you to combine architectural progressiveness with heritage.”
blausee.ch

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Christmas television used to be a thing. It was when the heads of channels would splurge on buying the rights to air the latest James Bond film or play all 12 days of The Lord of the Rings in order. Schedules would be cleared of ordinary furniture and a hush would fall across the land as families gathered to bask in the warm glow of a unique broadcasting event. In the UK, the national grid would have to plan for huge surges of electrical demand when the nation boiled its kettles in the ad breaks or Frodo finally returned to the Shire in one piece.

Now we imagine a typical house as a cut-away diagram in which all personnel are squirrelled away in separate rooms, faces lit by individual streams. There’s Dad in the kitchen with a laptop, watching reruns of old Top Gear episodes courtesy of BBC iPlayer; on the sofa, Mum’s watching a Netflix drama on her tablet, earbuds in; upstairs, a pair of young teenagers are ghoulishly illuminated by TikTok’s attention-sucking algorithm, a phone for each of them. Presumably the spell might only be broken when a Deliveroo driver rings the doorbell.

You won’t be surprised to learn that figures for British viewers – a good representative for most mature TV markets – indicate that less than half of Gen Z would ever dream of watching television by switching one on. In the average two hours of screen viewing a day for 16 to 24 year-olds, more than three quarters of that time is spent on video-sharing platforms. So even streaming – getting what you want when you want it – doesn’t really cut it. On YouTube and TikTok you don’t really get to choose what you watch: stuff a bit like stuff you’ve already seen gets thrown at you and you can stick or twist. But is that a million miles from the linear TV through which you’ve caught yourself dumbly channel-hopping for decades?

There’s a case to be argued that Christmas TV – with its charming, pinball-random approach – is the canary in the come-back-to-the-schedules coal mine. This is that joyful time of the year when old-school television appears to have got on the sherries before lunch and continues to go rogue into the new year. There’s a warm, fuzzy feeling you get when you know that you can fire up the old Panasonic with your morning coffee and get chestnuts deep in The Muppet Christmas Carol before you’ve even thought of having a shower. Hold the ablutions further: Singin’ in the Rain is on after that. And surely someone in the scheduling department at Broadcasting House will be smirking at the possibility of viewers segueing from the sexy dilemmas suggested in Indecent Proposal (Christmas Eve, BBC2, 22.30) into the objectively less sexy Midnight Mass from Our Lady of the English Martyrs, Cambridge (Christmas Eve, BBC1, 23.50). 

A good way to schedule TV, then, and even bring younger audiences into a more familial dynamic of multi-generational viewing might well be by channelling some of that anything-goes Christmas spirit into other times of the year. World Cups and Wimbledons exert a similar gravitational pull on the national imagination and schedules are adjusted accordingly. Slightly strange, unashamedly random seasonal scheduling might just be the gift that keeps on giving throughout the year. Like many things that come around at Christmas, the aesthetics are a little messy but everyone loves it just the same. Christmas TV? It still matters.

Robert Bound is a contributing editor at Monocle. For more opinion, analysis and insight, subscribe to Monocle today.

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Every year, Jiyu Kokumin-sha – the publisher of contemporary-affairs glossary Gendai Yogo no Kiso Chishiki – takes stock of contemporary Japan via an annually updated encyclopaedia of the 10 most popular buzzwords of the year. The final line-up (whittled down from a longlist of 30) offers a fascinating snapshot of a year in Japan shaped by heat, inflation and political shift.

10. Myaku-Myaku
The mascot of Expo 2025 Osaka went from zero to hero during the course of the six-month event. Initially derided for his baffling blue-and-red appearance, Myaku-Myaku became the star of the show, shifting vast quantities of merch and providing the backdrop for endless selfies. The Expo itself defied gloomy predictions, intense summer heat and epic queues to pull in 25.5 million visitors and make a profit. 

9. ‘Niki’
As Japan endured another record-breaking summer this year, there was much discussion about how the country’s distinctive seasons are becoming less defined. With longer summers and shorter winters, many fear that Japan’s famous four seasons (shiki) are blurring into two (niki). 

8. ‘Toranpu kanzei’
The country was taken aback by the severity of Trump’s tariffs. Japan, which considers the US an ally, found itself treated as harshly as other nations and its auto industry in potential difficulty. In the end, the nation’s top trade negotiator Ryosei Akazawa’s repeated trips to Washington saw the final figure drop to a still-painful 15 per cent. 

7. ‘Sen go 80-nen’ / ‘Showa 100-nen’
2025 was a big year for anniversaries: 80 years since the end of the Second World War and a century since the start of the Showa era – the longest imperial reign in the nation’s history and a distinctive period remembered for its astonishing economic growth and a golden age for design in everything from architecture to cars and interiors. 

6. ‘Kokokomai’
Rice was an even hotter topic than Trump’s tariffs this year, as households watched the price of the crucial staple soar. The government attempted to bring costs down by releasing some of its stockpile from 2020 and 2021 harvests, which resulted in people talking about kokokomai or “very, very old rice”.

5. ‘Kokuho’
Japanese-Korean director Lee Sang-il’s lavish period drama about the world of kabuki theatre, Kokuho (National Treasure), paired two industry stars – Ryusei Yokohama and Ryo Yoshizawa – and became the highest-grossing Japanese live-action film of all time. 

4. ‘Kinkyu juryo’ / ‘Kuma higai’
The phrases kinkyu juryo, meaning “emergency cull”, and kuma higai, or “damage caused by bears”, reflected the nation’s increased ursine threat this year. Bear attacks reached record highs, with more than a dozen people killed. Hungry bears were seen climbing persimmon trees and munching their way through valuable apple harvests, particularly in Akita prefecture, where the Self Defence Forces were called in to restore order. 

3. ‘Orudo media’
While Japan tends to steer clear of the “fake news” culture war, there was a growing sense this year that young people were gathering information on social-media platforms rather than from orudo media (“old media”) outlets such as TV, radio and newspapers. A major sexual-harassment scandal at Fuji TV didn’t help.

2. ‘Ehho ehho’
This was a niche one. The phrase ehho ehho – meant to convey the sound of huffing and puffing – accompanied by a photo of a baby owl on the run, taken by Dutch photographer Hannie Heere, became a viral meme, used by anyone in a hurry or working hard.

The winner:
1. ‘Hataraite hataraite hataraite hataraite hataraite mairimasu’ / ‘Josei shusho’
Japan appointed its first female prime minister (josei shusho) in October after Sanae Takaichi was elected president of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. With a minority government, a faltering economy and tricky regional geopolitics, Takaichi has a tough road ahead. Her plan, she said, was to throw work-life balance out the window and give it her all, announcing: “I will work, work, work, work and work” (Hataraite hataraite hataraite hataraite hataraite mairimasu). A spat with China early into the job hasn’t made life easier.