The Monocle Minute

The annual Mobile World Congress (MWC) is under way in Barcelona and organisers are hoping that this year’s attendance will surpass the 101,000 people who rocked up in 2024. This event was once about products – a showcase for the latest handset releases – but now there’s a relentless focus on less glamorous things such as networks and connectivity. Why? Because fast, reliable services are needed to enable all of the innovations that are about to be built into your phones. Most of these are underpinned by artificial intelligence. In fact, AI is so ubiquitous that many of the keynote events so far didn’t even bother to mention AI in their titles – and then focused on little else.

Qualcomm, which makes chips for Android smartphones, has forecast that this year there will be a key shift to AI capabilities – think ChatGPT – being baked into your device, not requiring cloud access as they do now. This, it says, will mean increased privacy and faster results.

Meanwhile, Google gave an impressive demo of the latest advances in its AI platform, Gemini. By accessing your camera and responding to voice prompts, it can now deliver the kind of style feedback that would once have required a human expert. Gemini was asked to advise, for example, on whether a selection of colours would work on a vase inspired by mid-century modernism. It responded with plausible advice in seconds, underlining the challenges ahead for the creative industries.

In a nod to the new product releases of the past, fast-growing London-based phone brand Nothing announced more details about its upcoming mid-range phones, the Phone (3a) series, which will offer upgraded Qualcomm processors, striking designs and a flashing light system that can be used as a visual timer – silently letting you know when your taxi will be arriving, for example. Handy for a swift exit.

Throughout the show, there has been a sense that AI is the only game in town and if your products – from phones to cell towers to processors – don’t have it baked in, you’re missing out. Yet, despite all of the advances, it’s satisfying to see so many people brought together from across the globe by the lure of a good city and the chance to have an aperitivo on a terrace at the end of the day.

Phelan is Monocle’s technology correspondent. For more opinion, analysis and insight, subscribe to Monocle today.

Italian fashion label Stone Island welcomed a full house at its New York Soho shop to celebrate its partnership with Monocle. Friends, collaborators and design enthusiasts gathered to explore the brand’s latest Ghost collection and pick up our freshly printed March issue, which features a look at the line.

Guests sipped Italian wine while browsing racks of impeccably crafted monochrome pieces, pausing to take in the campaign photography on display. The evening’s soundtrack came courtesy of Alex Delany, whose vinyl selections set the tone. At one point he was given a hand by film director (and Stone Island campaign star) Spike Lee, who sifted through records alongside him.

It was a pleasure to be back in the city, raising a glass and celebrating great design in good company. If you missed out, be sure to pick up our latest issue to see the story that set it all in motion.

Europe’s premier property fair, Mipim, kicks off in Cannes next week and Monocle will be in attendance. In the lead-up to the event, The Monocle Minute is selecting some highlights from our Property Survey, featured in our March issue, in which we explore how the best projects can be catalysts for pacy street life, lively commerce and strong communities. In today’s edition, we take a look at heritage building Baan Trok Tua Ngork.

When their ancestral home in Bangkok’s Chinatown was due to be spruced up, the Assakul siblings – Win, Sun, Sandy and Sea – took the opportunity to chart a new path for the neighbourhood (writes Joseph Ko). “We reimagined it as a community space for Chinatown that could set the stage for sensitive development and cultural creativity,” says Win. The family worked with Bangkok-based Stu/d/o Architects to restore the building, which reopened in 2023, and create spaces for up-and-coming businesses to rent. From maintaining the historic shopfront to retaining old teak doors and the spiral staircase, they sought to create a beacon for the district that preserved the old while making way for fresh possibilities.

“To respect the existing businesses in Chinatown, we only considered concepts that brought something different,” says Sun. Tenants include Delia’s authentic Mexican fare and Namsu’s modern spin on Asian cuisine. Baan Trok Tua Ngork has helped to lead the way for a revival of Chinatown as other renovation projects, such as creative hub The Corner House, have since opened.

Ian Griffiths, the creative director of Italian fashion house Max Mara, unveiled the brand’s autumn/winter 2025 collection last week in Milan. The runway show, which was inspired by a stroll through the fields of Yorkshire, featured luxurious, floor-length cashmere coats, chunky knits, tailored trousers and full skirts in camel and burgundy shades. Here, Griffiths takes Monocle through his eclectic mood board, which leans on literary references and travel photography.

What are you focusing on right now?
We want to make a point about cashmere being the ultimate luxury fabric and propose a new silhouette – something fluid but not oversized. I’m used to designing big jackets so it felt refreshing to sketch something a little more fitted. We also added shoulder pads to jackets, which emphasise the waist, and used metres and metres of cloth to create large hems for skirts.

Tell us about the inspiration behind these new silhouettes.
All of the images on my mood board are related to the same romantic spirit. I am drawn to the honesty that the Brontë sisters describe in books such as Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, especially when it comes to what people are capable of. Then there’s Julia Margaret Cameron, a 19th-century photographer who captured people’s faces in a way that highlights both their strengths and their weaknesses.

The mood board also features photographs of people taking flights. Why?
I wanted to remind you – and myself – that we’re not talking about a woman riding a horse in these clothes. This collection is about a contemporary woman who is sitting on a plane going to New York and heading to a boardroom. It’s dramatic. I’d love to make a film about it one day.

We head to ‘The Face: Culture Shift’, a new exhibition at London’s National Portrait Gallery celebrating the magazine’s photography and effect on popular culture. The show is a who’s who of contemporary cool and an ode to the power of print media. We discuss the legacy of the publication with the exhibition’s curator, Sabina Jaskot-Gill; former editor of ‘The Face’ Johnny Davis; and Monocle’s editor in chief, Andrew Tuck.