In September 2023, writer Marcel Cartier and photographer Peter van Agtmael travelled to the Iran-Iraq border to meet Iranian Kurdish fighters, many of whom had fled their homeland following protests against the Islamic Republic regime after the killing of Jhina Mahsa Amini. As the US and Israel hit targets in northwestern Iran in an alleged attempt to open up a route for Kurdish forces to enter the country, we are republishing this piece to give readers insight into who these fighters are and what they are fighting for…

After touching down in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan’s bustling capital, Monocle gets a message via Whatsapp with instructions to take a taxi to a shopping mall and wait there for a car. After 30 minutes, a battered white van pulls up. Two women and a man, all wearing crisp green fatigues and beige trainers, step out to greet us. As we make our way out of the Northern Iraqi city of 1.4 million, the driver moves quickly, checking his mirrors every few seconds. Our guides explain that this part of Kurd-controlled Iraq is crawling with Iranian intelligence officers. We make it out and the terrain soon turns from dusty city streets to lush green fields. About 30 minutes later, we arrive at a scattering of low huts nestled on the side of a mountain. This is a camp of an armed Iranian-Kurdish militia group known as the Kurdistan Freedom Party (PAK).

Not unusually for Kurdish militants (known as peshmerga), this is an all-female camp. Much to the chagrin of their fundamentalist enemies in Iran, the group espouses gender equality. The camp’s chief commander, Rubar, is Iranian and joined the PAK at the height of its struggle against Islamic State, crossing the mountains in 2016. Today she is in command of 150 female fighters. “I saw what Islamic State was doing to Kurdish women here,” she says gravely. “I already knew a bit about PAK from social media and I felt like I needed to be part of the fight.” Soon after arriving, Rubar was battling Islamic State on the outskirts of Mosul, 85km west of Erbil. She explains that the Islamic State fighters were particularly afraid of being killed by women, believing that it would prevent them from going to heaven. Fast-forward and the so-called Islamic State is no longer a controlling force in the region.

Now it’s Iran that’s in the peshmerga’s crosshairs. In September 2022 a 22-year-old Iranian-Kurdish woman, Jhina Mahsa Amini, was beaten to death in Tehran by the state-backed Morality Police, a group responsible for enforcing the country’s strict take on sharia law. Amini had been detained for not wearing a headscarf properly and her death sparked the most significant anti-government protests in the Islamic Republic’s 43-year history. Tehran’s security forces cracked down hard, arresting thousands and killing hundreds of protesters. Demonstrations were particularly large in Iran’s Kurdish-majority regions and the slogan “Jin, Jiyan, Azadi” (Kurdish for “Woman, Life, Freedom”) was chanted in solidarity on the streets of Los Angeles, London and Berlin.

While it seemed for a moment that a popular uprising might spark regime change in Iran, Rubar says that Western nations have done “nothing” for the cause. “Countries like the US are afraid,” she says. “But we’re not.” To reinforce her point, Rubar rises and beckons towards the camp’s cemetery, which contains the graves of 29 PAK fighters, including some killed in a recent Iranian drone attack.

As she reads the names of the fallen, several peshmerga can be seen practising hand-to-hand combat in a field next to the graveyard. Two of them, Jilano and Media, were studying at university in Iran when last year’s protests started. Media, a 19-year-old from Tehran, attended Masa Amini’s funeral. “After the burial we went to a park to hold a protest but we were beaten by security forces,” she says. “After a few days of protests, I was taken to prison. The police held me there for an entire month. During that time, I was slapped and had my feet beaten,” she adds before detailing further harrowing details of psychological and sexual suffering inflicted to try to elicit a confession. Media was asked to sign a statement promising that she would not participate in any further demonstrations. She did so, then made immediate plans to flee and continue the fight from across the border in Iraq.

Jilano, a 24-year-old law student, began writing anti-government slogans on poster boards after Amini’s death. She then made the treacherous border crossing for a few hundred dollars with the help of smugglers. It’s a physically demanding journey, involving an eight-hour mountain trek in the dead of night. Most of the 150 fighters at this camp share similar stories. Here, Media and Jilano have tasted the freedom they craved. “In Iran, the Kurdish flag, symbols and names are forbidden,” says Media. “Here we can embrace that and they have given me a gun. I can use that – and let my hair flow freely.”

‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎Erbil’s bustling streets offer at least a surface-level glimpse at what Iranian-Kurdish autonomy might look like. The capital of Iraqi Kurdistan has seen the emergence in recent years of gleaming new neighborhoods with names including Dream City and American Village, and luxury hotels complete with vast air-conditioned restaurants. Iraqi Kurds have been able to leverage oil wealth in an attempt to replicate Dubai-like opulence, even if success in doing so remains unlikely, partly because poverty and corruption are significant problems. However, autonomy for Iranian Kurdistan would almost certainly look different, as oil is a resource their region doesn’t possess.

Since 2005 the region has been autonomous from Baghdad, making it an effective state within a state. This has helped to insulate it from the sectarian fighting that has engulfed the rest of Iraq. The country’s Kurds are proud of that success and, understandably, they want to conserve it. As such, politicians here walk a tightrope and are wary of giving overt support to their Iranian-Kurdish brethren. Many fear incurring Tehran’s wrath and sacrificing their own hard-won stability in Iraq for an uncertain – some say impossible – Kurdish cause in Iran. This said, staying away from the fray entirely might be harder than it seems. As the number of fighters based in their territory grows, the chance of a confrontation between the massing Iranian peshmerga and Tehran is growing. If such a clash escalates from isolated skirmishes to all-out war, many Iraqi Kurds might feel compelled to fight alongside their brethren.

A dusty two-and-a-half-hour drive east of Erbil brings you to Iraqi Kurdistan’s second city, Sulaymaniyah, and within 100km of the border with Iran. Ironically, given its proximity to the Islamic Republic, Sulaymaniyah is probably the region’s most liberal city. The journey there takes in Lake Dokan, a stunning turquoise-blue freshwater affair and tourist hotspot for Iraqis from all over the country. Sulaymaniyah is also the base of Komala, a political party and armed group that is probably the best-organised Kurdish opposition to the Iranian regime. Founded in 1969 as a communist organisation, it supported the 1979 Iranian Revolution that toppled the monarchy but then found itself fighting Islamists who had gained power under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Today, Komala sees itself as a modern, social-democratic party that fights for workers’ rights and Kurdish liberation: specifically, a Kurdish-governed area within Iran, like the one that exists here in Iraq. Unlike the PAK, it advocates not for Kurdish independence but for Kurds to have autonomy within a secular Iran in which power is decentralised. Still, it has been labelled a terrorist organisation and targeted with missile strikes by Tehran. One attack hit the group’s main Iraqi base a few months ago, so Monocle’s rendezvous takes place at a safe house.

Armed men keep Monocle in the car for several minutes. Once we are allowed to leave the vehicle, we meet Kawsar Fattahi and Abdullah Azarbar, members of Komala’s Central Committee. Azarbar, a former peshmerga, is near the top of the Iranian government’s most-wanted list. He insists that the party kept an active role in the recent protests by helping to co-ordinate peaceful marches online and that military participation would have been a step too far. “It’s very important that we try to give the civil movement a chance to affect change,” he says. “If we were to send in armed forces, it would give the Iranian state the excuse to perpetuate an even bigger bloodbath.” While the protests in Iran have died down, Azarbar says that Komala members inside the country continue to quietly foment revolution by distributing leaflets, sticking posters on walls and spray-painting political slogans. “The time will come,” says Azarbar. “We will have to use force.”

Fellow Komala member Fattahi teaches a weekly class on political ideology to new recruits in a small, bare, hut-like building with a whiteboard. This week’s subject is secularism. Recruits rest their Kalashnikovs against the wall and take out notebooks. The room’s single light bulb appears to be broken but Fattahi’s enthusiasm is undimmed. In front of the class, her demeanour transforms from soft-spoken politician to firebrand orator. During a break, we head outside. Fattahi, calm again, apologises for the intensity of her lecture. “People come here from a society where the government has told them how to think,” she says. “Many have never had the privilege of challenging these ideas. This is the first time they are being exposed to any other concepts.”

As the anti-government protests spread in late 2022, Fattahi truly believed that the time had come for Komala and the Kurdish causes. Drills and exercises increased but Tehran’s missile and drone attacks stymied any progress. So have the Iranian Kurds missed their moment? Fattahi says not. “Our movement hasn’t been crushed, even by severe repression and executions; people are not frightened,” she says, with total conviction. “All revolutions take time; they don’t happen overnight.” This much at least, it seems safe to agree on. 

Think back to the last time you boarded an aircraft: what do you remember? Food, drink, service and your seat might come to mind but do you recall the music? Sound doesn’t typically make lists of travel necessities but Finnair believes that music should be a part of a trip – the company even thinks that it can spark affection for an airline. The brand has introduced a new soundscape, composed by famed Finnish composer Lauri Porra, which threads through the Finnish national carrier’s in-flight experience. Unlike typical playlists or borrowed tracks, this original work was recorded with a symphony orchestra and designed to accompany different stages of travel rather than just fill the silence.

This approach contrasts with the industry norm. Airlines have long obsessed over how flying looks and smells, with cabin lighting following circadian rhythms and signature scents wafting through premium lounges. The travel soundtrack has often been generic and interchangeable, treated as background noise rather than an intentional part of the customer experience. “One component of the brand that should always be thought about, certainly in terms of customer experience, is sound,” says Finnair’s chief customer officer, Simon Large, at the company’s headquarters near the Helsinki-Vantaa airport. “It’s often underappreciated but it can be enormously influential on how people feel.” 

Numerous studies have proven that sound – music in particular – can subconsciously affect our anxiety levels and the way that we perceive space and time. Slower tempos can lower heart rate and steady breathing. Certain tonal patterns can make waiting times feel shorter. Even the perceived size of an area can shift depending on the acoustic environment. Translated into an aviation context, this means that music can change how we experience delays, how spacious a cabin feels or how we react to turbulence. In an aircraft, these subtle cues become even more important as passengers surrender a degree of control once the doors close. Yet many airlines fail to view music as an essential element of customer-experience design. The standard practice is to purchase music through licensed catalogues. Commissioning a full composition, as Finnair has done, is extremely rare. Owning the music allows the company to control not only the mood but its sonic identity, ensuring that what passengers hear onboard cannot be heard anywhere else.

Beyond the psychological benefits, this new soundscape also supports Finnair’s brand. For an air carrier positioning itself as a link between Europe and Asia, national identity is a valuable commercial asset. “As part of our brand refresh, we want to double down on our Finnish heritage,” says Large. “And Porra’s composition is Finnish to the core; I’ve seen it evoke deep emotions among my colleagues.” This emotional response is not accidental. The brief was clear: authenticity first, reassurance second and inspiration throughout. Music gives Finnair better control over passenger mood and can help boost their feelings about flying with the company. “As we embarked on this project, one priority was to provide passengers a certain sense of wonder about travel,” adds Large.

Porra’s composition consists of 12 tracks that total about 45 minutes. Each segment is carefully matched to a phase in the journey, creating an emotional arc: boarding brings anticipation, take-off builds excitement, and cues for descent and arrival reflect a sense of resolution and welcome. Porra even composed music for the crew to listen to before passengers board. The tracks include traditional Finnish instruments such as kantele and jouhikko, with some even featuring a symphony orchestra.

Porra, who in his native Finland is considered music royalty as the great-grandson of the national composer Jean Sibelius, says that the project felt deeply personal to him. “As a musician who has spent decades touring the world, airplanes are like a second home to me,” he says, speaking to Monocle at his home in Helsinki’s Ullanlinna district. “I have often thought about what music for an airplane would sound like.” Porra drew on his Finnair journeys – from childhood holidays to business trips – to consider how emotions can fluctuate during a flight. “In the end, it’s about making the passengers feel comfortable in various situations, while incorporating a certain Finnish feeling to it all,” says Porra.

Finnair is so confident in its new soundscape that it has released the full composition on streaming platforms. It is an unusual step in airline branding, allowing passengers to carry the company’s atmosphere with them. This, of course, requires a strong emotional connection with the brand – something that Finnish nationals have with the carrier. Porra recalls when stepping onto its aircraft after long periods abroad felt like arriving home. Now, Finnair bets that its new soundtrack will evoke the same sense of occasion among international travellers. 

In an industry focused on metrics, investing in a unique auditory environment might seem redundant. But an airline’s customer loyalty is shaped by how a journey feels, from beginning to end. Finnair’s experiment shows that sound could be an untapped frontier in aviation. Whether or not passengers recall the music, they will remember how it made them feel.

There are two pillars driving the design industry forward in 2026. First are sector heavyweights – from the Brianza-based family firms churning out high-end furniture to German and Swiss brands producing practical, industrial pieces – accounting for nearly 15 per cent of the world’s furniture market (valued at some €470bn in 2024). Second are collectable works made by small studios, ateliers and skilled craftspeople, which are experiencing record sales (a François-Xavier Lalanne hippo-shaped bar sold for €27m late last year). Both will be represented at the third edition of Matter and Shape in Paris, the business-focused design salon that kicks off this Friday and coincides with the final days of the city’s fashion week.

Artistic director Dan Thawley has centred this year’s iteration around the idea of scale. “It’s a playful yet pertinent umbrella, referring to the size and proportion of, or relationships between, objects, bodies, spaces and time,” said Thawley. “It invites visitors to consider the micro and the macro, the minute and the monumental, the immediate and the historical.” His editorial direction speaks to the industry’s two pillars, with everything from one-of-a-kind collectable pieces to industrially produced objects on show. What unites these works is their ability to have a significant impact on a personal and public scale.

On a micro level many of the pieces presented at Matter and Shape can influence human behaviour: colourful textiles by industrial powerhouses such as Marimekko might dictate our mood, while Tavares 1922’s bespoke jewellery – a demonstration of Portugal’s craft legacy – might elevate our sense of self. On a macro level the works drive cultural and economic activity. Tiles produced by ceramic manufacturer Mutina strengthen Emilia-Romagna’s industrial economy, while Finland-based Studio Kukkapuro’s chairs (pictured above) and furniture from VandaVee (pictured below), a London-based design studio making work that blends Middle Eastern craftsmanship with Western minimalism, speak to the visual and aesthetic cultures of the people who create them.

The benchmark for good design, whether industrial or bespoke, should be products that lift our spirits, local economies and a region’s sense of self. Matter and Shape’s 76 exhibitors will be grappling with this dual responsibility. Every chair, textile and tile carries this weight – a reminder that design matters at every scale.

Nic Monisse is Monocle’s design editor and will be reporting from Matter and Shape this week, which is open to the public from Friday 6 March until Monday 9 March.

It’s brutal when you can’t even call yourself brutalist. Here I stand, the towering butt of a joke so laboured that it scarcely bears repeating: The best that can be said about the Tour Montparnasse? “From ze top iz ze only place in Paris where she cannot be seen.” Very drôle, I’m sure, but with a sad ring of truth. 
 
Take a ride up any other mid-height skyscrapers you care to name and I daresay that you’ll see yourself looking back in the glassy reflection of neighbouring windows. I can’t say the same: at 210 metres tall I stand head, shoulders and knees above my surrounding colleagues. Any notion that I might have initiated a skyward surge, modernising Paris in a pivot to Manhattan-en-Seine, was dashed by my very construction: just two years after I was completed the city issued a moratorium on buildings of more than seven storeys.

Yes, hopes were high – 59 floors, not to put too fine a point on it – when ground was broken in 1969. A new direction for the city, artists’ ateliers demolished to make room for me, a shopping centre and this emerging and sublimely American form of creative expression: consumerism. Not a popular idea, it turned out.  
 
Completed in 1973 to almost-universal derision, I could only stand and stare as they finished my rive droite counterpart, the Centre Pompidou, in 1977. Parisians hated it too, until they didn’t: scepticism gave way to pride. It’s hard to carry a grudge. Who could fail to be cheered by its playful accent of colour, its formal experimentation and wilful otherness against the beige, Lutetian limestone totality of Paris? From ground level the city is magnifique, I’m told, but I defy anyone to stare at all of it, every day, without thinking dark thoughts about municipal obstinacy.
 
Of course, Parisians have never rushed to embrace novelty. Even the Tour Eiffel, my nemesis, had its critics. And yet today it’s everything I’m not: world-famous, universally adored and taller. Envy? Who said anything about envy? There was something a bit Sadean, perhaps, on the part of my developers to put me quite so en face with my arch-enemy. But size isn’t everything, you know, and from where I’m standing, postmodernist vim wins out over steampunk clockwork any day. What a wind up. 
 
Worst of all, just beyond La dame de fer is the proud and glittering range of my would-be peers. The stink after my construction banished skyscrapers to the La Défense neighbourhood, outside the city limits and beyond the range of opprobrium. Too late for me – I’m stuck, rooted in a derelict shopping centre. The stink has changed but it hasn’t gone away. You can almost smell the pee from up here.
 
As I say – brutal. But things are looking up. At the end of this month I’ll be closed for a four-year redevelopment project. Lipstick on a cochon? How dare you. While the 15th arrondissement’s mayor, Philippe Goujon, has stated his preference for my demolition, he has agreed not to “let the best be the enemy of the good”. From murky brown, I’ll be transformed to iridescent: clear glass, garden roof, the works. 
 
And best of all? Renzo Piano is also involved in my renovation. C’est vrai, the starchitect who, alongside Richard Rogers, gave Paris what it didn’t know it needed in the form of my beloved Centre Pompidou, is turning his hand towards yours truly. “You always have to catch the spirit of the moment,” he told The New York Times. In our nipped and tucked age, perhaps he’ll succeed where my last developers failed.
 
Times have changed and the emergent consumer-focused instincts of the late-1960s don’t feel quite so déclassé anymore. Consumerism is the air we breathe and when my new cafés, shops and green space are installed they’ll come running. After they’ve popped up the Eiffel for a good look, that is. 

Tour Montparnasse is a building in the 15th arrondissement. Its opinion on the proposed architectural upheaval was written by Paris-based journalist Augustin Macellari.

Read next: The Monocle City Guide to Paris, featuring the best hotels, restaurants and retail spots in the French capital

Nearly a week into the US-Israeli war with Iran and the skies above the Gulf remain streaked with the crisscrossing contrails of modern air defence. Just after midday on Saturday, deep concussive thuds rolled across Abu Dhabi, Manama, Doha and Dubai (to name just a few targets). Residents and visitors stepped onto balconies and rooftops to watch what has quickly become a familiar spectacle: interceptor missiles climbing steeply into the air before detonating and neutralising incoming Iranian drones and ballistic weapons. The noise is unsettling, though those loud bangs mean that the defences are working. But for how long? 

Since the war began, Iran has launched hundreds of missiles and drones across the Gulf in retaliation to US-Israeli strikes. By Wednesday evening, 212 missiles and roughly 1,065 drones had been fired towards the UAE alone. Emirati officials say that about 92 per cent have been intercepted, largely by US-made Thaad systems, Patriot batteries and fighter jets scrambling from bases across the federation.

On paper, the numbers suggest a formidable defensive shield. Yet the arithmetic tells a more complicated story. While most of Iran’s weapons are being destroyed, each interception comes at a price – and that’s part of Tehran’s strategy. Iran’s drones, particularly variants of the Shahed loitering munition, are cheap and plentiful. Some cost as little as $20,000 to $50,000 (€17,000 to €43,000) to produce. The interceptor missiles used to destroy them can cost between $500,000 and $1.5m (€430,000 and €1.3m) each. At this rate the side defending its skies might end up spending 20 times more than the side attacking it.

“The maths clearly favours attrition,” says Kelly Grieco, senior fellow at the US-based Stimson Center think tank. Tehran’s stockpiles of drones and missiles are believed to be significantly larger than the combined interceptor inventories available to the US and its regional partners. This imbalance is not accidental. It’s the strategy.

Modern warfare is increasingly defined by what military planners call a “salvo competition”, a contest over who runs out of weapons first. Iran lacks the air force to challenge Israel or the US directly but possesses thousands of missiles and drones capable of being launched across the region. The aim is simple: overwhelm defences, exhaust interceptor stockpiles and stretch the economic cost of defence beyond what is sustainable. And those stockpiles are already under pressure.

The US and its allies have been burning through advanced interceptors at a rapid rate. High-end systems – used extensively to defend Gulf cities and military bases – are expensive and slow to replenish, raising concerns in Washington about the long-term sustainability of its campaign. According to US and Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) officials, some Gulf allies are already discussing the need for additional defensive supplies as the pace of Iranian strikes continues. Interceptors are being launched at a rate far faster than they can be produced and replenishing stockpiles could take months or even years.

Officials in Abu Dhabi insist that the country retains strategic reserves capable of defending the federation “for a long time”. But the tempo of the conflict has already triggered urgent collaboration among allies. On Tuesday night a high-level Emirati delegation quietly arrived in Tel Aviv for talks with Israeli and US officials – discussions understood to include defence co-ordination and the sustainability of interceptor supplies.

Meanwhile the battlefield itself continues to evolve. Layered air-defence systems have proven highly effective against ballistic missiles, intercepting them high above the atmosphere before they reach their targets. But slower, low-flying drones can slip through those layers – a vulnerability exposed by several strikes on infrastructure across the Emirates, including airports, oil facilities and shipping ports. 

Iran’s drone strategy borrows heavily from tactics first deployed in Ukraine: large numbers of inexpensive, slow-moving aircraft launched simultaneously to saturate radar and interception systems. The result is a conflict defined less by decisive battles than by sustained pressure.

The response from Washington and Tel Aviv is now shifting accordingly. As interceptor stockpiles come under strain, the US and Israel are racing to locate and destroy the factories, storage depots and launch sites responsible for producing Iran’s drones and missiles. “We’re now seeing a race,” says Grieco, “between Israel and the US trying to locate this drone infrastructure and destroy it, and Iran trying to keep it an active threat.”

The UAE government has been unusually open about the threat. In an unprecedented press briefing earlier this week, officials displayed the wreckage of intercepted Iranian drones and missiles – twisted charred metal fragments recovered from the desert and the sea. On a political level, the UAE has sought to maintain a carefully calibrated position. The country is not formally part of the US-Israeli war effort but has nevertheless found itself in Tehran’s crosshairs. More than half of the Iranian strikes directed at Gulf states so far have targeted the Emirates. Kuwait has received the next highest number of attacks, including missiles aimed near the US embassy, followed by Bahrain, where an apartment block was struck and the US Navy was also targeted. The reason might lie in the UAE’s open diplomatic relationship with Israel following the Abraham Accords.

But Anwar Gargash, diplomatic adviser to the UAE president, rejects that explanation. “There is no rational reason,” he says. Iran has targeted multiple Gulf states – including some that have historically acted as intermediaries between Tehran and Washington. In his view, Iran might simply see the Gulf as “the weaker part in the underbelly” of the conflict.

For now, the UAE remains in what Gargash describes as a defensive posture, intercepting attacks while seeking to prevent the war from widening. “Our air defences have been doing a marvelous job of securing people’s lives and property,” he says.

But the strategic question looming over the Gulf is no longer simply about capability – it is about patience and endurance. Destroying Iran’s missile silos, drone depots and launch infrastructure would require sustained strikes across a vast country, a campaign that could take weeks or months. Until those capabilities are neutralised, Tehran retains the ability to keep firing. And every missile launched by Iran forces another calculation in Washington, Tel Aviv and the Gulf capitals. How many interceptors remain in the magazine? In this war, the battle might not be decided in the skies at all. Instead, it could be decided by whichever side shoots its bolt first.

Mallorca was once an island of makers – of shoes, textiles, tiles, clay tableware. While these craft traditions have been challenged and often diminished, there are still numerous ateliers and factories keeping manufacturing alive. But more than just sustaining these practices, there are designers developing modern, vibrant businesses with global ambitions. 

Here we profile three studios delivering furniture collections that are helping to make Palma a design city to watch.

1.
Resmes
Island roots, global ambitions
As a young designer nurturing a fledgling business, it’s easy to be overwhelmed by the effort it takes just to keep going. But when Monocle visits Joan Morell and Elena García’s studio-cum-showroom in Palma, the husband-and-wife team behind furniture- and product-design company Resmes explain that beyond finding customers and doing their own photography while assembling product lines, they have another pressing task: writing a manifesto – and one that’s not too demanding or restrictive.

“In Mallorquín, the words ‘res més’ translate as ‘nothing more’ and so our brand’s name has a very specific meaning,” says Morell. “We want to make products that feel essential. But we are at the point when we need to write down what we stand for. We need a manifesto.”

García can already articulate one of their guiding principles. “We want to be the solution to our clients’ problems,” she says with manifesto-like clarity. The pair met as teenagers and dated through university, worked variously for design studios and architecture offices and, three-years ago, started their company as a side hustle. The couple are now fully committed both to the business and to each other – they married last summer.

Resmes has a portfolio of products that are made to order and, while often informed by the island – the pair tap into local craft traditions and support Mallorca’s carpentry workshops – it isn’t limited to only using the island’s resources. The founders are thinking big, finding ideas and materials from where it feels right for a product. “Mallorca is important to us and shapes us but what matters most is the story, not just what we have here on the island,” says Morell.

There’s the Cadira chair crafted from oak with a handwoven-chord seat that takes nine hours to make, which they have taught themselves how to complete in numerous intricate patterns. Then there’s the growing Pleg collection (named after the Mallorquín word meaning “to bend”) made from aluminium, which today includes a bench, two small tables and shelving. The metal is supplied from the mainland and Morell and García oversee the assembling and spray-painting.

The collection has proved popular with restaurants, shops and hotels but the pair also want direct contact with homeowners so that they can provide those promised solutions in domestic settings too. Another thing they want to offer? Products with fair prices. “We’re trying – let’s see what happens,” says Morell.
resmes.es

Further reading: See how multi-brand shop Colom worked with Resmes.

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2.
Adriane Escarfullery
Bold chairs and tropical modernism
It’s all coming together for Dominican-born furniture designer Adriane Escarfullery – but it has been a rather epic journey to get here. The 35-year-old has had to overcome many setbacks and teach himself not only to design his large, full-bodied chairs (think tropical modernism mixed with the aesthetics of Børge Mogensen, the Danish designer of the famous Spanish Chair) but also to make them by hand and market them too.

We find him in his studio in a central residential neighbourhood of Palma, Mallorca. His regal chairs are on display on the ground floor, while in the basement workshop there are piles of leather that he is arduously stitching to use as upholstery, prototypes for new sofas and a photography set-up (with which he is shooting images for his website). “I am a designer but I have had to become a builder too,” he says as he guides Monocle around his workspace.

Until a few months ago, Escarfullery was running the entire operation from a co-working space, trying not to infuriate the other tenants with his banging and sawing. But then came a dream commission to work with celebrated architecture company Ohlab on Terreno Barrio, an upcoming hotel in the city. “It has changed my life,” he says.

Escarfullery’s family – his mother and stepfather, along with four of his many brothers – moved to the island when he was 16 years old. It was here that he went to design school, before heading to Lyon in France, where he worked at an architecture firm that made furniture. He had also previously studied in London in 2014.

“I did a lot of things wrong in the beginning,” he says. “I found a carpenter to make my first prototype but, because I didn’t know how to brief him properly, I had to wait three months. Then, when I attached the seat, it was so horrible and really uncomfortable.” 

In the end, it took him 18 months just to have a single model made that he was happy with. Luckily, he now has carpenters who he can rely on. Today his line-up includes the chunky Fee Fi Fo Fum chair, which is made from recycled wood and was inspired by the 1947 Walt Disney film Fun and Fancy Free. Then there’s the stocky Elef, with rope seating and a wide backrest whose shape was influenced by “the ears of an elephant”. The Ohlab commission promises to put Escarfullery’s work in front of a far wider audience. No matter what happens next, one thing is sacrosanct to him. “I want to have the time to enjoy Sunday lunch with my mum,” he says.
adrianescarfullery.com

For more on this story, pick up the March issue of Monocle.

Further reading: See the mountain house that Ohlab built

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3.
Studio Jaia
Reimagining island traditions
Anna Lena Kortmann grew up in Cairo, studied in Mainz, Melbourne and Paris, and became an interior architecture and exhibition designer in Los Angeles and, for 10 years, Berlin. But she was after something – and somewhere – else. She knew Mallorca from holiday visits and started spending time on the island, initially working remotely on architecture projects but perhaps looking for a reason to put down roots and use her hands again.

“I missed the creation part and working with materials. Here, in Mallorca, I discovered these traditional chairs with beautiful weaving,” says Kortmann. “I found someone who taught me how to do the weaving. It was not a business idea to start with, but it became one.” In seven years, Kortmann started her business, making everything herself, including tapping into her woodworking skills to build the furniture. “I changed the frames as I didn’t want to use dark wood and I found a finer cord – a recycled cotton. After that I didn’t want to stop.”Since then the business has developed apace. In 2022, Kortmann moved to a larger space in Palma’s Pere Garau neighbourhood where in addition to the workshop there is a showroom, which is open by appointment. Today she works with a carpenter who makes the frames for the furniture, while she and her team focus on the weaving. “The larger space means that I can also take on bigger, one-off commissions,” says Kortmann. There has been another recent bonus: one of her Puput stools has been acquired by the Design Museum of Barcelona for its permanent collection.
studiojaia.com

Further reading: Want to know more about Mallorca’s creatives? Find out more in this report on Chiara Ferrari.

For more on Palma’s design shops and makers, make sure you read our Palma City Guide, which is free for subscribers.

There is a moment in every disruption when the affected industry mistakes a commercial problem for a political one. The music business spent a decade litigating Napster and its successors before anyone seriously assessed the underlying issues. Publishers are at a similar moment now and the response is following a familiar pattern.
 
Last week some of the UK’s largest media companies, including the BBC, the Financial Times, The Guardian, Sky News and The Telegraph launched Spur – the Standards for Publisher Usage Rights coalition – inviting global media leaders to join what has already been nicknamed “Nato for news”. The ambition is to establish shared licensing frameworks to ensure that AI companies pay fairly for journalistic content and respect intellectual property.

Separately, Condé Nast’s chief executive, Roger Lynch, told the FT that AI summaries have delivered “another death blow” to Google search, predicting that within a couple of years, search traffic will no longer be a meaningful driver of his business. Both stories are true. Neither addresses the actual problem. Condé Nast has already signed a licensing deal with OpenAI. Lynch’s comments suggest that he knows that it buys time but doesn’t guarantee survival.
 
This candour is useful precisely because it reveals what went unexamined for so long. If Vogue and Vanity Fair were primarily dependent on Google to deliver readers, the issue was never Google. Publishers who built on search were renting an audience, not owning one. The traffic looked like loyalty but this was an illusion. AI summaries just exposed it.
 
Spur, meanwhile, is a reasonable initiative dressed in language that inadvertently concedes the argument. By framing the crisis as a licensing dispute, publishers position themselves as content suppliers to AI companies rather than as institutions with independent authority. The danger isn’t only that AI doesn’t pay for the content. It’s also that publishers who license their archives are implicitly accepting a model in which AI holds the reader relationship and journalism sits somewhere upstream, wholesaling raw material. 
 
The publications that look least alarmed right now made a different set of decisions, mostly a decade ago. The FT spent years acquiring readers who pay, not visitors who arrive from algorithms and leave. Bloomberg built a terminal, a data business and an editorial identity so embedded in professional life that no summary replaces it. Successful publishers share specificity over scale and depth over reach – a willingness to be genuinely selective about their audience. None tried to be everything to everyone, delivered by Google. That instinct, which seemed conservative or even eccentric during the growth years of digital media, turns out to have been the only viable strategy. These are brands that, by accident or design, had already exited the attention economy before it collapsed.
 
AI disruption has not created a new problem for publishing. It has clarified an old one. The publications that survive will not be those that most successfully lobby for a fairer share of the attention economy, though fairer terms would be nice. They will be those that built something that readers chose to return to because it is irreplaceable, not gaming page views or letting audience engagement call the shots. 
 
Colin Nagy is a Los Angeles-based journalist and Monocle contributor. For more opinion, analysis and insight, subscribe to Monocle today.

Some five months ago I joined the procession of fashion-week goers dressed in all-black tuxedos to attend the final show designed by Giorgio Armani, held in the courtyard of Milan’s Pinacoteca di Brera. For a brief moment the industry paused to celebrate the life of the Italian maestro, as he was often referred to among his peers, forever admired for the clarity of his vision and, equally, for his unheard-of ability to operate independently during a time of consolidation and conglomerate takeovers.

As is always the case with fashion – forever on the hunt for what’s next – the narrative has quickly moved on to succession. Ever controlling, Mr Armani left precise instructions to his heirs for his company’s future: sell a 15 per cent stake within 18 months followed by an additional 30 to 54.9 per cent in the next five years (to the same initial buyer) or file for an initial public offering (IPO). Armani’s preferred buyers included LVMH (which already tried and failed to buy the Italian company during the founder’s life), eyewear giant EssilorLuxottica and L’Oréal, which is best known for its dominance of the beauty market but has also made investments in younger fashion labels such as Jacquemus.

During the most recent edition of Milan Fashion Week, conversations swirled around the topic of succession – everyone wants to know how much closer the company is to an actual deal, since the terms of the will (which surprised all those unfamiliar with Armani’s ways) were announced. The reality is that aside from fruitless speculation, there is no news of the company nearing a deal. The war in the Middle East, inevitable slowdown in the ever-important Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) market and overall global uncertainty will no doubt pose a new set of challenges for any potential bidder.

At the same time the company’s wheels keep spinning and there’s no denying the Armani brand’s prominence across the fashion market. During Milan Fashion Week alone, the company introduced a collaboration with fellow Italian label Alanui, welcomed New York restaurant Indochine for a pop-up at its Via dei Giardini restaurant, celebrated the Emporio Armani Power of You fragrance and presented two new collections. The new looks for its Giorgio Armani label, appropriately titled New Horizons, was Silvana Armani’s (the founder’s niece) first collection as creative director. She introduced subtle shifts in the form of more casual flannel suiting and daywear, emphasising her focus on women’s daily realities.

The result offered a sense of continuity and reassurance – but it’s only a matter of time before both customers and potential bidders expect to see more substantial change. Ultimately, the direction the brand takes lies with Silvana Armani, the founder’s long-time partner and collaborator, Leo Dell’Orco, and his nephew Andrea Camerana. But as much as they interrogate who the winning buyer should be, they should also consider who should be handed the brand’s creative reins to help execute a necessary refresh. The right person would renew the relevance of the Armani brand while respecting the aesthetic codes of its founder – and helping to safeguard the company’s future. “Armani needs to modernise and clean up its wholesale and sub-brands,” Luca Solca, managing director and global head of luxury goods, tells Monocle. “Labels need to stay current and [Armani] would benefit from a refresh.”

Further reading? 

– Our 10 favourite shows from Milan Fashion Week autumn/winter 2026

– Giorgio Armani’s farewell show at Milan Fashion Week

– In a city of perfect suits, Milan Fashion Week Men’s is on a quest for endurance

The Danish prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, visited parliament with two items on her agenda last week. The first was to enact a one-off, tax-free payment of DKK2,500-DKK5,000 (€335-€669) to be paid to roughly two million households to help with the cost of living. Her second task was to announce that Denmark will hold a general election on 24 March, its first since 2022.
 
Is it cynical to see a connection between the two items on Frederiksen’s to-do list? The opposition parties branded the payment “valgflæsk” or “election pork” (most things in Denmark can be explained with pork metaphors), pointing out that her Social Democrats party has dropped by nearly 7 points in the polls since the last election.

The other two parties in her governing coalition have also plummeted in popularity: the cent-right Venstre is polling below 9 per cent. Moderaterne, led by former Venstre prime minister and current foreign minister, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, has fallen to just 4.2 per cent. This is despite Rasmussen’s recent diplomatic success in Washington over Greenland negotiations. But Greenland is simply not a decisive issue for many Danish voters. In the party-leader debate, televised on the evening that the election was announced, Greenland was not mentioned once.

Danish general elections are always confusing. The country’s four million or so voters have a bewildering 12 parties from which to choose, yet it is often difficult to define policy differences between them. All will make pledges that they and the electorate know can never be delivered on because no party will ever have an outright majority. Danish election campaigns thus take on the air of an optimistic child’s Christmas wish list, except instead of “Dear Santa, I would like a drum kit”, you get “I would like to spend another 1 per cent of GDP on defence”.  The inevitable conclusion will be a coalition of compromise and backroom deals. For a nation that prides itself on its democracy and openness, it’s usually a bit of a stitch-up. 

This particular general election seems even more paradoxical than usual. Here’s why: 

1.
In one of the most quantifiable egalitarian nations on earth, the prime minister’s first priority, she says, is reducing (further) inequality.

2.
In a country that has some of the highest taxes in the world, several parties want to raise taxes and even create new ones. Two are being proposed: a wealth tax of 1 per cent on those with more than DKK35m (€4.6m) and a capital-gains tax on people’s homes.

3.
Denmark has experienced relatively low levels of immigration and granted comparatively few asylum claims over the past 10 years (if we exclude Ukrainian refugees). Some parties are nevertheless campaigning exclusively on reducing immigration. Several have now hopped on the remigration bandwagon – the growing right-wing movement across Europe to “send migrants home”. They justify this stance by pointing to crime rates, even though Denmark’s are among the lowest globally and the country ranks as the world’s eighth most peaceful.

4.
In a nation where financial surpluses have grown by billions of kroner in recent years and where the retirement age is already set to rise to 70, there are politicians who claim that there isn’t enough money to fund, say, another school reform or decent hospitals.

5.
Despite having 10 national holidays  – two more than the UK – several parties are campaigning to reinstate Store Bededag (Great Prayer Day), a holiday that was abolished three years ago that no one really understood anyway. I repeat: nobody is mentioning the still rather real threat of losing 98 per cent of Danish territory to the US.

6.
Copenhagen has almost tripled its total defence-related outlays, including Ukraine aid, since Russia’s full-scale invasion but there are parties that believe that the most important issue is to further increase defence spending.

7.
Having reduced its CO2 emissions by half since 1990 and outpacing most nations in terms of the green transition, Denmark is nevertheless home to parties that feel that it is not going fast or far enough. Danes are eating too much meat, flying too much, driving too many diesel cars and living in unnecessarily large houses. That all has to stop, apparently.

Let me end with yet another paradox: the Danish state has never been richer and Danes enjoy virtually full employment; they really never have had it so good. Yet as things currently stand, they are about to reward the government that is responsible for this by voting it out of office. And just one more paradox: Frederiksen might well stay on as prime minister. 

You might think that the grass is greener over here. For the Danes, apparently, it isn’t nearly green enough.

Michael Booth is Monocle’s Copenhagen correspondent. For more opinion, analysis and insight, subscribe to Monocle today.

Read next: Should Denmark take over the Shetland Islands?

Four days into a confrontation between Iran, Israel and the US, the Gulf has been caught up in a conflict that it sought to avoid. Civilian infrastructure across the region has been damaged, including in the UAE, jolting a country better known for its stability than sirens and air defences.

At the centre of the nation’s response is Anwar Gargash, diplomatic adviser to the UAE president and a veteran of the country’s foreign-policy establishment. As regional leaders field dozens of calls from capitals around the world, Gargash is helping to shape the Emirates’ posture: defensive but resolute, wary of escalation yet clear about its right to act.

Monocle’s Gulf correspondent, Inzamam Rashid, spoke to Gargash as airports began partially reopening on Monday evening and Gulf governments weighed their next steps.

The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity. 

How would you describe the mood within the UAE government after several days of Iranian bombardment across the Gulf, including here in the Emirates?
The mood operates on three levels. First, there is the larger conflict – the US-Israel-Iran confrontation – which will determine the geostrategic shape of the region for years to come. It is still early and the picture is unclear. The Iranians appear to want a longer, protracted conflict; the Americans and Israelis prefer something shorter and sharper. Whatever the outcome, the repercussions will be significant.

Second, there is a sense of shock at Iran’s decision to target its Gulf neighbours. These are countries that have consistently called for negotiated settlements and an off-ramp to conflict. Yet we have seen drones aimed at civilians and public infrastructure. Iran has moved from what it once described as a “good neighbourly” policy to outright aggression.

Third, there is the domestic front. The UAE is not a society used to war, so there has been a psychological impact. But our institutions are functioning. Our air defences have performed remarkably in protecting lives and property. Airports and ports are partially reopening. There is resilience and a determination not to panic.

Before Israel and the US struck Iran, how much warning did the UAE receive?
In these situations, there are rarely formal warnings. When the Geneva talks failed in late February, it was clear that a confrontation was likely within 24 to 72 hours. But we did not expect this level of intensive Iranian aggression against the Gulf collectively. If we had not had capable air defences in place, the consequences could have been catastrophic. Iran has antagonised precisely those neighbours that were calling for political solutions.

Why do you think Iran has retaliated so strongly against the Gulf states?
Frankly, there is no rational justification. Over the past few years, Iran pursued reconciliation with Gulf countries, including a Chinese-brokered agreement with Saudi Arabia. Contacts improved across the board.

My analysis is that it is more difficult for Iran to target the US and Israel directly. It might have viewed the Gulf as a softer underbelly. But this has backfired. By targeting its neighbours, Iran is sowing long-term enmity among Gulf populations.

The UAE in particular appears to have been heavily targeted. Do you see a political motive in that?
Kuwait and others have also been targeted. Oman, which facilitated negotiations for more than a decade, has been targeted. Qatar has been targeted. It is irrational. This is, in my view, a failed Iranian policy rather than a calibrated political message.

What conversations are taking place among Gulf states? Is military retaliation on the table?
Definitely. The Gulf has a history of coalescing in the face of common threats. We are co-ordinating closely. We want a political solution and good neighbourly relations with Iran, however strained trust might now be. At present, we are in a defensive posture, intercepting missiles and drones. But I can envisage a shift to a more active self-defence stance, independent of the US-Israel campaign, if required. Geography does not change; Iran will remain our neighbour. These are decisions that require deep calculation.

How much more can the UAE absorb before retaliating militarily?
Our president has received close to 50 calls in three days from leaders around the world. There is broad solidarity and recognition of our right to self-defence. Our objective is to contain the war and seek an off-ramp, not expand it. But if necessary, we will do everything required to protect the UAE and everyone who lives here.

Has this conflict damaged the UAE’s reputation as a safe haven for residents and investors?
There will always be an initial reaction. But I believe that the UAE will emerge stronger. I draw an analogy with the pandemic: a severe crisis that ultimately demonstrated the strength of our institutions. You can already see daily life returning, albeit cautiously. The resilience of our leadership and systems will, I believe, reinforce the UAE’s attractiveness.

As flights gradually resume, what confidence do you have that there will not be further attacks?
We cannot rely on Iranian restraint. The decision to target neighbours has been, in my view, foolish and callous. What we can rely on is our preparedness. We assess the situation day by day, maintain normal life where possible and refuse to be cowed by threats.

Finally, what is the UAE’s position on reports of civilian casualties inside Iran following US and Israeli strikes?
We have opposed this war from the outset – for geostrategic reasons and because wars in this region have repeatedly failed to resolve conflicts. The loss of civilian life and the targeting of infrastructure only reinforce our position that political solutions are urgently needed.