Sarah Balmond
Welcome home
From fashion to toys, outsourced production lines are closing as companies rediscover local industries. This shift brings benefits to individual companies and suggests that not every western nation must be a service economy.
Upwardly mobile
Milan's Salone del Mobile showed an optimistic mood despite the credit crunch, attracting a record 348,000 visitors. Many came from abroad, with a strong showing from booming South American countries.
Best in class
The redesign of Oslo International School by Jarmund/Vigsnæs proves that inspired architecture has a calming effect on pupils. It's a colourful, light-filled alternative to the average uninspiring school interior.
Fast Finnish
Finland’s organic food market is tiny. One deli is changing this with a new retail concept combining healthy fast-food with thoughtful design, feeding a nascent movement for fresh, well-designed fare.
A study in scarlet
Swedish architects Andreas Ferm and Jani Kristoffersen of DRD-A apply their ingenuity to smaller projects, including the clever redesign of the Stockholm office for photographic agency LundLund.
Salon rangers
Milan’s I Saloni are the most important events in the design calendar. With over 2,300 exhibitors and almost 300,000 visitors, they are a key marketplace for buying and selling modern design.
This is the way
Major airports like Schiphol and JFK have turned to Dutch designer Paul Mijksenaar for their signage systems. He tells Monocle about his crusade to take the art of wayfinding in a new direction.
Albam Clothing
Albam, a British fashion start-up, is keeping costs down without turning to factories in China for help. Founded by entrepreneurial fashion outsiders James Shaw and Alastair Rae, the duo's first shop is a breezy,…
The coast is cleared
Is your country too small? Make it bigger. Monocle reports from Singapore and the Netherlands, where nations are reclaiming record amounts of land from the sea to expand their territory and house growing populations.
Swell guys
British microbrand Finisterre has introduced blue-sea thinking into the global surfwear market. It produces just six high-tech, low-impact garments and when the surf’s up, the team heads to the beach.
