London has a lofty literary legacy. The city has been home to some of the most celebrated writers in the English language – from Shakespeare and Dickens to Woolf and TS Eliot. It has also provided the backdrop for stories that have travelled far beyond its cobbled streets, and deep into readers’ imaginations. 

London’s bookshops continue to be places of quiet refuge – somewhere to step out of the hubbub and adopt a more contemplative pace. Spend time browsing and one thing becomes evident: the ritual of choosing a book in person – of plucking one from a shelf and leafing through – is hard to beat. Ebooks are convenient and online vendors helpful in a pinch but they’re poor substitutes for the scanning of spines and perusing of pages. And now many of London’s independent bookshops are finding ways to go beyond bookselling by acting as publishers, festival hosts or community hubs. From Bermondsey to Broadway Market, this is Monocle’s guide to 10 of the best establishments for bibliophiles. 

Hatchards, St James’s

“But what was she dreaming as she looked into Hatchards’ shop window?” the narrator of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway asked of its titular character. The answer a century ago was, no doubt, the same as those staring through its curved bay windows today: the dream of finding the perfect book with which to escape from the quotidian. And there are few places better suited to do so.

There’s an opulence about the dark-fronted shop in the middle of Piccadilly’s high street, currently managed by Francis Cleverdon (pictured above). Hatchards has been serving London since the late-18th century, longer than any other bookshop in the capital. From the curving central staircase to the hand-selected fiction and non-fiction subscription services or the frighteningly knowledgeable, well-dressed booksellers, Hatchards’ exudes competence. Chart-topping authors regularly drop in to shop and sign their new titles. Meanwhile, the oft overlooked stock of rare books behind the ground-floor desk and the dedicated top floor hold all manner of pristine first editions from the beloved to the unlikely: perfect for sourcing gifts or acquiring a personal favourite in its original dust jacket.
hatchards.co.uk

Burley Fisher Books, Haggerston

In a landscape where literary sales are dominated by Amazon, Burley Fisher in the creative enclave of Haggerston in east London wears its independence with pride. Founded in 2016 by erstwhile Camden Lock Books colleagues Jason Burley and Sam Fisher, the venture aims to be what the pair have described as a “communitarian” bookshop. Fisher has a deep motivation to promote small publishers – alongside the shop, he operates the independent Peninsula Press. His passion for small presses is evident across the store, starting with the front table covered with stacks of poetry from Bloodaxe Books, queer titles from Cipher Press and translated fiction from Fitzcarraldo Editions. 

Fancy starting your own press? The shop hosts zine-making workshops and has an in-house Risograph printing press for use by earnest, prospective publishers. “You can come in, we talk about what it is that you want to publish, you print it, and then we put it on the shelves,” says Fisher. Those DIY publications fill a dedicated section of the two-floor space, alongside experimental prose, secondhand fiction and a considerable selection of rare photography books. A downstairs basement equipped with a bar hosts book launches with writers such as Olivia Laing and Vladimir Sorokin. Burley Fisher’s collaborations with Arts Council England and the Palestine Festival of Literature entail hosting events in and around Hackney – proof that independent publishing in the right hands is anything but a dying art.
burleyfisherbooks.com

AA Bookshop, Bloomsbury

Occupying the ground floor of a Grade I-listed terraced townhouse in one of the city’s oldest Georgian squares, the AA Bookshop is London’s only literature retailer dedicated exclusively to architecture (following the closure of the RIBA bookshop in 2025). Established by the Architectural Association – one of the UK’s oldest and most influential schools of architecture – the bookshop has become what Andrew Whittaker (pictured below), who has managed the space for more than a decade, describes as “rare resource support” for students, practitioners and designers alike. 

Stocking more than 4,000 titles, of which all but a few are orientated towards the built environment, the shelves offer technical studies and critical texts covering everything from mid-century British modernism and icons of the city’s brutalism to architecture’s most exciting contemporary voices. For collectors, a generous selection of rare titles not commonly available online can be found – aided by donations from the personal collections of the AA’s own members and alumni. Dedicated shelves for architectural editions such as Harvard Design Magazine, alongside theory, art and photography titles round off the offering.

Contemporary practices spark the most curiosity with customers, with works by 6a architects, Níall McLaughlin and the highly influential collective Archigram remaining the most consistently sought-after titles. With events every Wednesday and an in-house publishing team, AA Bookshop is the foremost purveyor of texts on the buildings we spend our lives in and around.
bookshop.aaschool.ac.uk

New Beacon Books, Finsbury Park

In the 1930s, writers and activists CLR James, Alfred Mendes and Albert Gomes founded The Beacon magazine to promote Caribbean literature and art on the world stage. In 1966, after moving from Trinidad to the UK and drawing on his close intellectual engagement with James, John La Rose established New Beacon Books alongside his partner, Sarah White, as well as the first black British publishing house – specifically to “reprint books as a way of making information available to future generations”. Recognising that colonial policy had deliberately withheld knowledge across generations, La Rose envisioned a bookshop as something more: a “liberated space” in which poetry, literature and historical writing from Africa, the Caribbean and the Americas could be accessible to London’s communities.

New Beacon Books is now led by La Rose’s son, Michael (pictured above). In its intimate Finsbury Park home, murals adorn the walls and the welcoming atmosphere invites discussion to flow between the shelves. New Beacon’s in-house press continues to champion independent writers and as it celebrates 60 years, a year-long programme of cultural events marks its heritage. New Beacon is sustained by the goodwill of volunteers and readers guided by the shared principles of its founders. “We aren’t businesspeople,” Michael says. “We are people – activists – in business.” 
newbeaconbooks.com

Libreria, Spitalfields

Perusing a typical bookshop’s alphabetised shelving and successfully discovering your next big obsession can, on occasion, feel nigh-on impossible. But Libreria, found just off Brick Lane, does not seek to be comprehensive in the same way as other stores.

Despite a large, mirrored wall at the shop’s far end that gives a brief impression of infinity (and draws inspiration from the never-ending library in Jorge Luis Borges’ 1941 short story “The Library of Babel”), the shop’s organisation fights back against traditional, formulaic organising principles. “We want to focus on discovery,” shop manager Aaron Hicklin tells Monocle. “And to make you consult yourself a little bit.” Their solution, which has captured buyers’ attention, is shelving titles through slightly more ambiguous categories: Enchantment for the Disenchanted, Bad Feminist and, most recently, Talking Animals. Across Libreria’s distinct yellow shelves you’ll find recognisable classics alongside small-press favourites. 

Founded in 2016 by former Downing Street policymaker Rohan Silva, Libreria sits opposite Silva’s other venture, the bohemian co-working space Second Home. When demand for Libreria’s popular monthly events outgrows the shop’s intimate space, Second Home opens its doors to accommodate – giving the small bookshop the ability to platform authors in a manner that punches well above its physical footprint. As the bookshop turns 10 this year, it’s the youthful London creatives populating Libreria’s reading nooks who still inspire Hicklin. “They’ve renewed my belief that books and reading will always have an audience and a place.”
libreria.io

The Photographers’ Gallery, Soho

The sophisticated counterpart to the renowned Photographers’ Gallery (TPG) is their bookshop on Ramillies Street. Sometimes it’s okay to judge a book by its cover – and TPG knows this well. There is no spine-by-spine reading to be done here. Instead, each title is face out, inviting visitors to pick it up for a flick through. Many of the works in stock are by current and past exhibitors, which turns the shop itself into an archival space of sorts – and an extension of the gallery proper upstairs. 

Like the gallery, the bookshop is open seven days a week and its programme includes talks, workshops and courses. Thanks to its speciality and renown there is a revolving door of photographers who drop by to celebrate new releases, sign books or to find some reading material themselves. There are few other bookshops in London that manage to balance curation in such a way that appeals both to uninitiated first-time visitors and lifelong camera aficionados.
thephotographersgallery.org.uk

Archive Bookstore, Marylebone

On a quiet backstreet in Marylebone there’s a rare retail experience to be had. Stacks of floor-to-ceiling shelving and the smell of dry, aged paper lets you know that you’ve entered Archive Bookstore. Despite seeming as though you’ve stepped into the den of a particularly bookish hoarder, there’s a charm that you certainly won’t find elsewhere on the polished high street. 

“Since the start our customers have ranged from those popping in for a paperback on their lunch hour to the types who will spend hours searching until they find exactly what they want,” Archive Bookstore’s owner, Tim Meaker (pictured above), tells Monocle. He established the shop back in 1979 with his wife Michèle, a bookbinder – and the shop has evolved to become the haven of literature it is today. Featuring stock made up entirely of secondhand books both donated and purchased – and one of the capital’s most significant archives of sheet music, which accompanies a baby grand piano downstairs that is open to be played by customers – there’s a guarantee that you’ll come away with something unexpected. This is a bookshop for sourcing a wildcard.
archivebookstore.co.uk

Pages of Hackney, Hackney

Ask any bibliophile what separates indie bookshops from the chains and the answer is almost always the same: the relationship with those behind the counter. Pages of Hackney on Lower Clapton Road is no different. “We get to know our regulars really well and they quickly become our friends,” says Jo Heygate, who has managed the shop for 12 years. Founded by Eleanor Lowenthal in 2008, when championing writers from the global majority was less common in high-street bookshops, Pages of Hackney has spent the better part of two decades adhering to the principle that its “stock should reflect the community it serves”. 

The latest staff recommendations are proudly displayed behind the till, where a list of more than 10 choices from each of the five members of the Pages of Hackney team – Eleanor, Jo, Ollie, Seb and Beth – change with new releases and older discoveries. The political and social justice section, now the shop’s best-selling category after literary fiction, commands a substantial share of the inventory. 

Downstairs, lovers of marginalia can explore a sizeable second-hand collection housing 1960s Penguin crime classics and a trove of vintage art books in the same intimate basement space that hosts Q&As and author events. A book club even gathers at the owner’s home twice a month: a reminder that, for Pages of Hackney, the community extends well beyond the shop floor.
pagesofhackney.co.uk

Artwords, Hackney

Artwords’ quaint exterior on the corner of Broadway Market beckons marketgoers away from the food stalls and into its hub for contemporary visual culture: specialising in design, fashion, film and photography. “Our shelves follow the zeitgeist,” says Jess Young, the shop’s co-director and shop manager. “They’re constantly in flux.” The selection – currently – includes wide ranges of monographs with spotlights on directors and photographers such as David Lynch and Helmut Newton, as well as critical essay collections exploring the shifting language of visual culture over the past century. From the thoughtfully designed covers of literary fiction and cookbooks to independent magazines, much of the stock is chosen, as Young describes it, for being “beautiful things”. 

Artwords’ founder, Ben Hillwood-Harris, opened its first location on a small site on Rivington Street in Shoreditch in 2001 before moving to Broadway Market. Today, however, the shop boasts another East London outpost: the Clarence Road store opened last year and has a more conventional appeal in terms of stock – but prioritises that same ability to adapt thanks to the modular timber shelving throughout. 

“We’re open to all. You don’t have to be ‘in the know’ to peruse our shelves,” Young adds. But when a weekend visit flaunts a full house of engrossed readers, it’s clear that Artwords has earned a following among those who are.
artwords.co.uk

Morocco Bound, Bermondsey

Morocco Bound in Bermondsey is the perfect all-rounder. Equal parts shop, bar and arts venue, the space is adaptable to suit all manner of visits – from a weekend drop-in to browse the shelves after a long lunch on Bermondsey Street to an evening’s drinks perched on its outdoor seating. 

Being smaller than most bookshops, the team is forced to be selective – of both books and beverages – which has turned into a strength. Approximately 500 titles across genres feature on the shelves and its craft beers are sourced from Bianca Road Brew Co on the fêted Bermondsey Beer Mile: a staple of the area’s nightlife and within walking distance of the shop. “It’s not the case that we’re a bookshop first or a bar first,” Soniya Ganvir, one of the shop’s co-owners, tells Monocle. “We’re very much both. Our list of titles is as curated as our wine list.”

The team of five enthusiastic young partners who co-own the shop each handle different facets of the business alongside their own creative endeavours – prioritising small-press works and independent magazines. But the spotlight on lesser-known artists doesn’t stop at the stock on the shelves. Every night of the week the team stages in-store events; jazz nights, acoustic gigs, poetry readings and stand-up comedy are peppered across sold-out weekly schedules. “Everyone that works here has such a genuine passion for the arts,” co-owner Cahal Bakaya says, “and being so invested in our respective scenes helps deliver better programming of events for the shop.” While an accomplished bookshop on the surface, between the pages it’s clear that an evolution is happening: the transition from retailer into a crucial community arts hub.
moroccobound.co.uk

Further reading?
– 10 of the best bookshops in Paris
– New York’s 10 best lesser-known bookshops
– Monocle’s full guide to London

For days, Lebanon had watched from the sidelines as the Middle East burned. News alerts from Tehran, Tel Aviv and Dubai were met with a mix of dread and denial. In smoky late-night cafés across the capital, one question kept resurfacing: “Would Hezbollah join the fight?” Some clung to the fragile ceasefire between the Iran-backed militant group and Israel, which had held for more than a year and brought an end to Lebanon’s deadliest war in decades. Others persuaded themselves that Hezbollah, battered by the conflict, lacked both the capacity and the appetite for another confrontation.
 
That illusion collapsed overnight on Monday, when Hezbollah announced that it had fired rockets into northern Israel, in retaliation for the assassination of Ayatollah Khamenei. Within hours, the skies above Beirut were once again punctuated by Israeli fighter jets.
 
In the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital – a dense sprawl of apartment blocks where Hezbollah has long held sway – many families were sitting down to suhoor (the pre-dawn meal during Ramadan), when the bombs began to fall. Plates of warm flatbread and bowls of stewed fava beans were abandoned mid-bite as parents scooped up children and hurried from their homes in the dead of night.

Further south along the border, Israel ordered towns and villages to evacuate. Many residents were already on the road, having hurriedly packed their cars at the first sound of outgoing rockets. The coastal highway north soon clogged with miles of bumper-to-bumper traffic. A journey that normally took less than two hours now stretched beyond a day.
 
As Israel and Hezbollah continue to trade fire with no clear off-ramp for de-escalation, the former has begun to invade and seize parts of southern Lebanon, expanding its evacuation orders to dozens more towns and villages. According to the country’s health ministry, the escalation has already killed more than 100 people and forced tens of thousands from their homes. Many have sought shelter in schools and mosques. Along Beirut’s seaside promenade, usually filled with joggers and sunbathers, children wrapped in blankets sleep beneath palm trees – just as they did 18 months ago when the previous conflict ignited.
 
It is a grim kind of déjà vu. 
 
Even among some of Hezbollah’s own supporters there is palpable anger over the group’s decision to drag the country into another unwinnable war. Large swaths of Lebanon remain in ruins from the previous conflict, leaving it with a multibillion-dollar reconstruction bill. Despite receiving assurances from the militant group over the weekend that it would not join the fray, Lebanon’s leaders, including Hezbollah’s political allies, were caught off guard.
 
That rupture put Hezbollah on a collision course with the state, deepening fears of domestic instability as the country settles into the wretched rhythm of daily bombardment. Under the ceasefire agreement signed with Israel in November 2024, Beirut committed to disarming Hezbollah. But Israel and the US have repeatedly accused the group of moving to rearm, something that Israel has cited as justification for its near-daily strikes since the truce deal.
 
Lebanon’s prime minister, Nawaf Salam, made the unprecedented move on Monday of calling for an “immediate ban” on all Hezbollah’s military activities and demanding that the group surrender its weapons to the state. He instructed the military to take “immediate measures” to prevent further rocket launches from Lebanese territory, including arresting those responsible.
 
The move marks a seismic moment but it remains unclear how much political will exists within Beirut’s fragile institutions to enforce it. Memories of the bloody 1975–1990 Lebanese Civil War, when the army fractured along sectarian lines, still loom large for many. Whether the nation’s leadership can assert authority over Hezbollah might now prove the decisive test in determining whether the country can avoid a far wider conflict.

Euan Ward is a Beirut-based journalist. For more opinion, analysis and insight, subscribe to Monocle today.

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