Issues

‘This is not a house of worship.’ Architect Farshid Moussavi on designing the Ismaili Center Houston

The minority Nizari Ismaili branch of Shia Islam has long wielded international influence through its glamorous spiritual leader, the Aga Khan, who has built centres in London, Vancouver, Lisbon, Dubai, Dushanbe and Toronto to promote the sect. At the head of more than 12 million Ismaili Muslims, the Aga Khan – or “master” – is a hereditary role established in the 19th century. The incumbent is Geneva-born Prince Rahim al-Hussaini, who became Aga Khan V last year. Among his philanthropic projects is the Aga Khan Award for Architecture, which recognises work in countries with significant Muslim communities and addresses their needs.

The Nizari Ismaili’s seventh centre is perched on the banks of the Buffalo Bayou in Houston, Texas, and opened in November 2025 as the first of its kind in the United States. The white-stone building is a Texan riff on Islamic architecture, with soaring eivans (Persian verandas) that open up in three directions, ensuring that the faith’s tenets of pluralism and community engagement are on dazzling display. Its architect, Farshid Moussavi, an Iranian-born Brit, spoke to Monocle about the building’s cross-cultural mission.

This building has both religious and social functions. How did this inform your design? 
This is not a house of worship. One component of Ismaili centres is that they have a prayer hall but they are more like cultural centres. There are a lot of social and learning spaces, a theatre and a café. The jamatkhana, or prayer hall, is not at the centre of the building. Instead, there’s a large, five-storey atrium for social interaction. 

What was it like to have him as a client? 
I knew Aga Khan IV from years of sitting on the award-steering committee. His outlook on architecture is extremely broad. It’s about how the projects are conceived, how the finances are gathered and how you design with the future in mind. Today we understand this as sustainability. He had so much confidence in the power of architecture to improve lives and to bring people together.

How did you translate ancient Islamic architectural references to 21st-century Houston? 
The mandate from the Aga Khan was to make something that was informed by the Islamic tradition of building, as well as one that could withstand the humidity and respond to the centre’s context in Houston. Atria, for example, can be found in both the Muslim world and the West. It’s the same with verandas. If visitors aren’t familiar with the verandas in Safavid Persia, then they might think of American houses in the south with porches. The project is not about thinking symbolically or through identity politics but about how the building performs as a social space.

Houston is a capital of evangelical megachurches, which have social functions as well as religious services. Did you think about this while designing the centre? 
Not at all. But I have no problem with the idea that religion brings people together, as long as it’s inclusive and nurtures the right kind of values. We need more compassion and understanding.

Five tables to book this spring – from Paris’s latest Korean opening to a late-night cocktail spot in Hong Kong

1.
Mius
Hong Kong

All 16 years of Shelley Tai’s bartending experience have been poured into her first solo venture, Mius. The new spot, which is open until 01.00 every night except Sundays on Gough Street in Hong Kong’s Central district, is already attracting a lively crowd. A stainless-steel bar stretches almost the length of the main space, while a second room has cosy seating around low tables. With its clean lines and mid-century aesthetic, Mius is a calming backdrop for raucous evenings.

When designing the space, Tai referenced coffee shops, wanting to emulate their informality and approachability. “I like the simple look,” she says. “I like places to feel like you can go back to them again and again.” There is a touch of comfort on Mius’s menu too, with dishes such as pasta alla vodka and duck-fat fries. But everyone is really here for the drinks. Mius specialises in subtle twists on old classics — adding fennel pollen to a margarita or mixing its negroni with strawberry and pink peppercorn. “The highball is my favourite cocktail on the menu,” says Tai. “That’s what I drink every night after work and on my day off.” Mius’s Kobe-style highball features frozen whiskey and chilled Japanese soda, keeping the drink as cool as the bar itself.
mius.hk

2.
Juntos Farm
Ibiza

When Christian Jochnick bought a decrepit dairy farm on the outskirts of the village of Santa Gertrudis in Ibiza in 2021, he was met with consternation and curiosity. His plan to regenerate the island’s fading farmlands was ambitious. “Ibiza has lost 70 per cent of its agricultural surface in just over a decade,” says Jochnick. “Despite a rich Ibicenco farming history, only 4 per cent of the island’s food is grown locally today.”

Juntos Farm, which the Swedish venture investor leads with British environmental designer Finn Harries, has become a hub of activity and fresh produce after five years. A new on-site shop and tasting room, Casa de la Cosecha, sells fresh fruit and vegetables, as well as artisanal products. A “triangular ecosystem” includes sister restaurant Juntos House in nearby Sant Mateu and a delicatessen in Santa Gertrudis. “It has been a battle but we wanted to create a model of collaboration,” says Johnick.
juntosfarm.com

3.
Orson
Paris

Away from the catwalk, Paris Fashion Week is also the time for exciting restaurants to move into the spotlight. In Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Orson – with its creative menus and retro-futuristic decor – was one such opening last season.

“This is my ode to the city,” says South Korean-born chef Esu Lee, who also runs the more casual Jip in the 11th arrondissement. “I get so much from Paris that I wanted to give something back; everything is rooted in Korean generosity.”

At Orson, he blends the wood-grilled flavours of South Korea with ingredients from the Med and French bistronomie principles: think perfectly charred meat and fish, with sides like chorizo-laced radicchio, washed down with natural wine.
orson.paris

4.
Simpson’s in the Strand
London

It was a sense of reverence for the history of Simpson’s in the Strand that appealed to restaurateur Jeremy King and his longtime design collaborator, Shayne Brady, in their latest venture together. The grand building, next to London’s Savoy hotel, counts PG Wodehouse, Winston Churchill and Audrey Hepburn among its former patrons.

“When we walked onto the Simpson’s site, Jeremy said, ‘This should feel like it has been loved by every owner that’s had it over the past 180-odd years,’” says Brady. “It was making sure all the wood panelling felt lovingly restored but not perfectly.” That panelling stretches through two dining rooms, two bars and a ballroom. “At 21,500 sq ft [1,997 sq m], it’s the largest restaurant that I have done,” says King.

The food at Simpson’s is traditional British, with hearty roasts in the Grand Divan and lighter contemporary meals in the smaller Romano’s. In the bar, Nellie’s, cocktails (the signature is a peach melba sling) are served until 03.00.

“Something that Jeremy taught me early on in my career was to sit in every seat on the plan and ask how it feels,” says Brady. “What is that guest looking at? Are they seeing into the kitchen?” The duo also obsessed over lighting. “Jeremy’s restaurants are famous for taking you from breakfast to dinner to late night,” says Brady. “That’s down to the lighting,” adds King: “I learnt the most about that from Peter Langan, who was a wonderful, natural restaurateur. He was a lascivious drunk, so he’s not a role model… but he did teach me about lighting.”
simpsonsinthestrand.co.uk

5.
Tiella
London

Tiella, the debut restaurant from London chef Dara Klein, distils three generations of family businesses centred on a love of home-cooked Italian fare. As a child, Klein bounced between Italy’s epicurean epicentre Emilia-Romagna and her nonna’s pasta shop before a family move to New Zealand. London beckoned with opportunites to train at Brawn and Trullo, as well as the chance to helm a residency at the Compton Arms. With restaurateur Ry Jessup she sought a permanent location, finding an east London pub in need of a new direction. Tiella encapsulates her view that the trattoria and the pub share attributes in aesthetics and ambience.

The menu is a roster of rustic seasonal dishes: a salad of delica pumpkin, radicchio and taleggio fonduta might sit next to her mother’s recipe for polpette (meatballs).

With wines from voguish labels and selections by Klein’s wine-importer father, Tiella is a true ode to her forebears.
tiella.co.uk

The renovation of the Philippine embassy in Singapore unveils a striking new chancery for overseas nationals

After almost 40 years in a cramped 1970s building, in December the Philippine delegation in Singapore moved into upgraded digs that are better suited to the needs of a modern diplomatic corps. “Plugging in two laptops used to overload the electrical system,” says ambassador Medardo Macaraig of the former base. On election days, embassy staff would have to erect pavement tents to accommodate the crowds who came to cast their ballot – not exactly the right look for this neighbourhood of stately villas and apartment blocks, nor the right message to send about Philippine statecraft.

After securing planning permission, Manila demolished the old house and hired Singapore-based ACO Architects and interiors practice Inside Outside Designs. The resulting chancery is a love letter to the Philippines expressed in the abstracted form of a bahay kubo, a stilt house typical of the archipelago’s vernacular architecture. It’s a much-improved environment for embassy staff, visiting delegations and the 220,000 Singapore-based Philippine nationals in need of consular services.

National symbols, domestic design and traditional materials are imbued throughout the three-storey structure. A woven bamboo lattice known as amakan crowns the main visitor entrance, while VIPs arrive under a canopy held up by a galvanised-iron narra, the national tree. Philippine-made pieces from designers such as Ito Kish and Vito Selma furnish the rooms. The result is a vital connection with the homeland. “The embassy building helps those who are homesick,” says Macaraig. As one of the world’s largest exporters of workers, the Philippines views its embassies’ primary role as serving its citizens living abroad.

The new chancery also has the potential to raise the country’s diplomatic profile in Southeast Asia during its Asean chairmanship this year. The windows of a room that overlooks a function hall can be tinted with the flick of a switch if negotiations turn tense. Rattan sofas and armchairs made using the solihya style of weaving encourage calm discussion, while an assortment of craftworks and a statement painting by contemporary artist Jose “Bogie” Tence Ruiz remind visitors that they are on Philippine turf. “Diplomacy is not only about talking,” says Macaraig. “By showing our culture through a building, we become more credible.”

In Monocle’s April issue, we profile our selection of the best foreign embassies in the world — this is just one of the establishments featured. See the rest of our favourites here.

Italy’s new London embassy, Casa Italia, is a shining example of soft-power promotion

When Monocle arrives at the new Italian embassy in London, we are offered coffee by the ambassador, Inigo Lambertini. Two espressos arrive; we take a sip. The coffee is very good. Not five minutes ago we were fighting our way from Victoria Station through the rain but now we seem to be in a hip Milanese bar. In fact, Casa Italia, the name given to the new embassy, would be a good one for such an establishment.

Built to showcase the country’s soft-power credentials, Casa Italia, which opened last November, brings together its embassy and trade delegation, as well as the Italian Cultural Institute. For Lambertini, its construction is of national as well as personal significance. He first visited the old embassy building in Mayfair’s Grosvenor Square as a young diplomat in 1990. “I stepped foot inside and said, ‘We need to renovate this.’” When he took up his post as the ambassador of the Italian Republic to the Court of St James’s 32 years later, he swore to move the mission to better digs.

It was a propitious time to lobby Italy’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs to fund such an endeavour. In late 2022 the coronavirus pandemic was receding and in-person diplomacy was back on the agenda. The UK had also recently left the European Union, increasing London’s salience to Rome. “Embassies are more important outside the EU than in it,” says Lambertini. “When you are in the EU, you meet every month for the council of ministers.” The UK is home to 530,000 Italians, the third-largest diaspora in Europe. “And London is one of the capitals of the world,” adds the ambassador.

Lambertini helped to persuade Rome that integrating trade, culture and diplomacy would give Italy the edge in soft-power promotion. “We are not a big power in some respects but we are when it comes to soft power,” he says. “In art, fashion, food, music and sport, we are very strong.” Inside Casa Italia, there’s no Renaissance painting or sculpture in sight. Instead, the five-storey building is filled with art and design from the 20th and 21st centuries, while all fixtures and fittings, as well as the paint on the walls, are made in Italy. “The message is that we didn’t stop at Leonardo and Tintoretto,” says Lambertini. There are bespoke carpets inspired by Carlo Scarpa’s Olivetti showroom in Venice and mosaics, made by Formafantasma, showcasing modern Italian aesthetics. The furniture includes leather Gio Ponti armchairs and a meeting table by Norman Foster for Milanese studio Tecno. All of it was put together by London-based designer Nick Vinson.

The embassy runs regular events aimed at promoting Italian soft power. When Monocle attends an opening by artist Carolina Mazzolari in February, the room is filled with the diaspora’s hip young things. It’s a reminder that Italy’s traditions of art, design, fashion, business, food and drink are more than matched by its people’s capacity to embody the dolce vita. Lambertini is the personification of this. In a few months’ time he will leave this post. Meanwhile, more important to him than the building is the admiration that his UK-based compatriots have for it. “I was at the opening of a new pizzeria in Soho and people kept coming up to me to say, ‘We love the new embassy. We are very proud.’”

In Monocle’s April issue, we profile our selection of the best foreign embassies in the world — this is just one of the establishments featured. See the rest of our favourites here.

SR_A share the strategy behind building a luxury brand portfolio through innovation and partnerships

British-Caribbean artist and designer Samuel Ross (whose accolades include an MBE for services to fashion) and Singaporean entrepreneur Yi Ng have been business partners for more than a decade. Ross founded luxury sportswear brand A-Cold-Wall* in 2015, with Yi Ng joining as partner in 2016, before the pair sold it nine years later. It was a prudent business move that allowed the duo to focus on their design studio, SR_A, which launched in 2019.

“I had been working on a thesis at Cambridge about seeing whether you could run an independent start-up by working with incumbents,” says Ng of the decision to launch SR_A. The project provided inspiration for a business model focused on having joint intellectual-property rights with clients, rather than contracting out design services. “Everything that we do has evolved into joint ventures,” says Ng. So far, SR_A has been hired by Apple’s Beats as its first external design studio, launched a project with Spanish fashion retailer Inditex to design clothing (SR_A Engineered by Zara) and created new patents for US-based bathroom brand Kohler. Recently, the duo took on an investor role with wearable-technology brand Whoop. SR_A launched its fourth watch, its first signature model equipped with the Unico chronograph calibre, for Switzerland’s Hublot.

Tell us about SR_A’s ambitions in the luxury sector.
Yi Ng: SR_A is a thesis for the new virtues of luxury. It’s about shifting the economics of scarcity and scale, and looking at how the view of the luxury consumer extends outside of fashion by pursuing different, long-term partnerships and joint ventures, and even taking on investor roles with some of the largest incumbents of each category. It’s always underpinned by the view that luxury is about reconciling traditional craftsmanship with engineering excellence.

Samuel Ross: We want to pair a sense of material innovation with the cultural sentiment of the time. It’s about ensuring that the value of the work is felt emotionally and is within the remit of moving the particular categories that we operate within forward. It’s about being rooted in true design with a cultural view.

How is this reflected in your partnership models based on building joint intellectual property?
SR: If you look at our partnerships with LVMH, Inditex and Apple, both commercial and cultural performance come into play. The partnership that we have brokered with Inditex’s Ortega family, for instance, is based on our commitment to democratic design. That’s also why our profits have been dispersed annually for the past seven years through grants and philanthropic efforts. But this is also an opportunity to work with a leading global vendor that owns most of its supply chain. The partnership means that Inditex can take and realise aspects of the designs that we want to deliver at a competitive price. It can do this without deteriorating the product value.

To a certain degree, we focus on specialising in every category that we work in. We assess where the partners’ capacities have remained untapped. It starts from the strength of their expertise and then it’s a case of seeing whether that can be chiselled or refined.

YN: The model of SR_A is to look at who’s leading in terms of innovation and who can give us the opportunity to be able to disseminate our ideas at scale. With these partnership models we’re able to communicate our discernment by developing, innovating and engineering the best product for a particular price point.

Could you tell us about your work with Hublot?
SR: It’s the largest watch manufacturer in Geneva and the largest within the LVMH group. As a vessel to hold hardware, a watch is unusual in that it’s one of the few things that are actually accepted as something you wear on your body. There’s an expectation of acuity and innovation that comes into play with that. When it came to the partnership, we wanted to broaden the material developments that hadn’t yet been brought to market.

Working across sectors, do you find SR_A is constantly appealing to different audiences?
YN: No, because the same consumer who wants to buy a timepiece from us also wants those same values in their house or in the consumer electronics that they wear.

SR: It comes down to being able to syndicate our ethos through every factor of what it means to live. Our work draws from the well of eudemonia – or human flourishing – through design. It’s a perspective, a desire and a search for cohesion, which we know can be applied across categories.

How is this reflected in practice in SR_A’s different products and design projects?
SR: There are two things that underpin SR_A. One is to fortify and enhance the body, and that goes through consumables, wearables, software, hardware, headphones – all of those aspects that ensure the body can perform. The second is to enhance and define environments. This includes our work with Kohler, the temporary pavilions developed with the British Council Arts globally and the runway and retail environments established with Inditex. The red thread would be that SR_A is architecture for the body, whether that’s internal or external.

Mönchspoint in Tengling: the farmhouse renovation you’ll want to move into

“I’ve always had good memories of this place,” says architect Andreas Müller of Mönchspoint, a farmhouse in the Upper Bavarian village of Tengling. It was here – amid the vineyard-dotted, gently rolling hills – that Müller mowed his neighbours’ lawns as a child. In 2004 he moved to Münich to study, later establishing his practice there. Some 12 years later he heard that the farmhouse’s longtime owner had died. “A call came from my best friend, who grew up next door,” Müller tells Monocle. “He told me that the caretaker wanted it to go to someone from the area, who would understand and care for it. It was never officially put on the market, only quietly shared within the village.”

In the vacated building, which originally served as a base for Benedictine monks from the nearby Törrig Castle, Müller saw childhood memories, a sense of home and an architectural challenge. “The emotional connection was immediate,” he says of his decision to buy the property. “I felt a big responsibility. Several other potential buyers planned to tear it down. I wanted to preserve it.” So, with creative strategist and frequent collaborator Eva Rosenberger, Müller set about the farmhouse’s renovation.

What followed was a crash course in the realities of historic redevelopment. First, the consultation period lasted five years, finally ending in 2021. The property’s location outside the official settlement area of Bavaria meant that it had a special classification, which prohibited making changes to the farmhouse’s exterior; any such alteration was deemed detrimental to the landscape and the cultural heritage of the region. “Keeping the elongated form, the pitched roof with traditional clay tiles and the original proportions were non-negotiables,” says Rosenberger. The interiors, however, could be redesigned.

Then it became apparent that the existing exterior walls could not support a new internal structure. So a “house within a house” concept was implemented, with Müller and Rosenberger installing an internal structure that was independent of the log walls. “We managed to keep the old beams where they were but Andy had to rethink the whole building,” says Rosenberger. As a bracing element, a rammed-concrete wall was built along the old timber wall that once separated the farmhouse from the stable.

The result is a unique hybrid. Seen from outside, it looks like a typical utilitarian structure of larch and stone that blends into the Bavarian landscape. Inside, though, it’s a rustic-industrial home with exposed stone and beams, natural materials and moulded concrete stairs. “We wanted to keep the cosiness and grain of the old structure but also support how people live today – shared cooking, light, room for friends,” says Rosenberger. A big, convivial kitchen was central to this ethos, with the main table made from a block of spruce left over from the construction of an ancillary home office. “The office building covers the footprint of the former sheep barn,” says Rosenberger. “It’s clad in dark timber with a simple standing-seam metal roof. It deliberately remains understated.” The space is furnished with Herman Miller Fulds chairs organised around a New Order shelving and desk system by Hay, providing enough room for a small team of creatives to work.

Economic necessity drove the design and build of the simple modular kitchen, which features open-top timber draws, wafer-thin stainless-steel countertops and a two-burner cooktop. It’s a combination that gives that space a considered, contemporary feel.

There are also nods to the building’s history: the exterior of the former agricultural section is timber-clad while the residential part is rendered, a traditional distinction that was consciously preserved. Parts of the interior reveal the rough-hewn, original walls. Mönchspoint’s timber structure had been renovated several times over the centuries, with castle rubble upcycled and integrated into the farmhouse following an older building’s demolition in 1421. Under Müller’s watch, the beams were brushed by hand, cleaned and treated with linseed oil; they are now a striking counterpoint to the polished concrete flooring and walls finished in ClayTec, an earthy product that naturally regulates humidity and provides thermal insulation. The internal woodwork was handled by South Tyrol carpentry firms Schreinerei Walzmühle and Ewos, and treated with Oli Natura products.

Müller and Rosenberger looked up the historical plans for the house in Münich’s state archives and learned that its windows had been installed according to late-19th century requirements. As a result of their relatively small size, installing additional lighting was crucial. Today a suspended Plusminus system by Spanish firm Vibia and Ayno lamps by Hamburg-based Midgard illuminate the home. Rechargeable Times lamps by From Lighting dot the garden, while all of the switches and sockets are by Germany’s Jung. The small hammam room is by Roca and finished in a microcement that recalls the lime-based Moroccan tadelakt plaster. There’s ample seating in the living spaces, including a Ligne Roset Togo sofa and E15 Houdini chairs, alongside vintage pieces.

“The real transformation happened within the home,” says Rosenberger but, she adds, consideration was given to how the residence sits on its expansive lot and the broader agricultural landscape. “The plot consists of open meadows, a gentle depression in the landscape, a small edge of mature woodland, a courtyard, a boules court and a gravelled access road,” she says. The setting feels expansive yet protected.

Because the property lies beyond the reach of the municipal grid, a plant-based wastewater treatment system was installed and a rainwater reservoir irrigates the verdant garden. “I originally wanted it to be quite classically German, with neatly divided hedges and clear sightlines,” says Rosenberger. “Instead, we let the surrounding wild nature back in.”

High-quality soil supports the growth of tomatoes in the vegetable patch and a sense of abundance now defines the building’s everyday life. “It was designed to be a home for two households,” says Müller, adding that a family with a three-year-old daughter now also lives here. An open-door policy means that friends and family members are constantly dropping in, enjoying communal cooking and swims in the lake. “From the beginning, this was meant to be shared,” he adds. “This place isn’t supposed to be fenced off. It was made for people.”

It’s a sentiment that Rosenberger agrees with. “It’s about community, not concept. Mönchspoint is most alive when you have 40 adults and 40 kids playing here. There is so much space that it still feels peaceful.” Both are frank about the scale and realities of a project such as this. “It took all of our energy, physically and emotionally – it wouldn’t be possible in this lifetime to do it again,” says Müller. “But we don’t regret a thing. The process shaped us. We are deeply proud and grateful for what it has become.”

Rosenberger tells Monocle that her next task isn’t to renovate somewhere else but to observe how Mönchspoint develops – both the building and the people who love it. “Guests, friends, friends of friends – they keep coming back and feel at home,” she says. “The work was immense but it was worth every moment.

Exterior and landscape

Plot size: 8,500 sq m
Key materials: Clay-tiled pitch roof, mineral lime-based plaster, larch-timber cladding
Drawing inspiration from vernacular architecture, parts of the structure feature traditional timber block construction with masonry from the destroyed Törring Castle incorporated into the walls. Reclaimed materials were used in the gardens, including former roof rafters that now define path edges.

Living spaces

Size: 65 sq m
Key materials: Regional timber, stone, mineral – and clay-based plasters, concrete
The main living space occupies the former barn. The original structure combines traditional timber-block construction with historic masonry. Exposed log walls, visible beams of mixed regional timbers, raw concrete and mineral-washed surfaces create a calming atmosphere.

Kitchen and dining

Size: 70 sq m
Key materials: Concrete, solid timber, lime plaster, stainless steel
The kitchen functions as both a workspace and place for gathering. While the agricultural origins of the building remain visible, a rammed-concrete wall adds an industrial atmosphere. The kitchen also features a stainless-steel frame, which is combined with maple sourced from local storm-felled trees.

Office

Size: 75 sq m
Key materials: White fir interior cladding, stone flooring, clay ceiling, metal roof
The office, a split-level space, is in dialogue with the surrounding landscape. Two large horizontal windows run along the building, framing views to the forest and driveway on one side and open landscape on the other. It’s a combination that creates an atmosphere that is conducive to calm, focused work.

Fondazione ITS illuminates fashion’s overlooked players with its exhibition ‘Exposure – The Power of Being Seen’

It is thought that the first professional stylist was Marie Jeanne “Rose” Bertin, who ran a boutique in 18th-century Paris. Her work came to the attention of the French queen, Marie-Antoinette, who was disillusioned with the rigid sartorial protocol of the court of Versailles and looked to Bertin to decode and subvert outdated aristocratic etiquette. With her emphasis on high jewellery, pouf hairstyles and ruffled collars, Bertin laid the foundations for what would become fêted as Parisian haute couture. Her early appreciation of the connection between high fashion and high society demonstrates how styling was born as much from politics as aesthetics. It’s little wonder that Bertin was known as the ministre des modes – the minister of fashion.

The importance of styling in popular culture is highlighted by a new exhibition in Trieste, from Marie-Antoinette’s boned corsets to Gwyneth Paltrow’s ruby-velvet suit worn at the 1996 MTV Video Music Awards. Exposure – The Power of Being Seen is curated by Belgian stylist Tom Eerebout at Fondazione ITS (International Talent Support), an archive that includes Italy’s first contemporary fashion museum. Eerebout made his name working with the likes of Lady Gaga, Kylie Minogue and Rita Ora. He styled Swedish actress Rebecca Ferguson for the Met Gala in 2024 when she wore a dress and cape designed by Thom Browne, embroidered with ravens – a motif inspired by Edgar Allan Poe – and 60,000 Swarovski crystals. He also chose Lady Gaga’s enormous pearlescent seashell umbrella by UK designer Luke Brooks, which she held for mere seconds as she left a London hotel in 2013 wearing a geisha-inspired outfit. “She handed it to me before she got into a taxi and it has been in my house ever since,” says Eerebout.

When we arrive at Fondazione ITS for a sneak preview of the exhibition, we are greeted by ITS founder, Barbara Franchin. As the creator of fashion talent competition ITS Contest, Franchin has nurtured the likes of French-Belgian designer Matthieu Blazy, the current creative director of Chanel, and Georgian designer Demna, the creative director of Gucci (she has one of his bespoke pieces in the ITS archive). Since 2002 the foundation has supported more than 700 designers; it invites 10 shortlisted designers every year to Trieste for a 10-day residency, giving them €10,000 each. With this new exhibition, Franchin has decided to unpick the little-known world of styling and celebrate its influence on today’s culture.

“Styling is a form of storytelling,” says Eerebout, who explains that he considered a career in film directing before realising that he could conjure cinematic worlds on the catwalk instead. “Fashion alone is clothing. Styling is what makes it human.” He was also interested in the way that celebrities command attention through their outfits. “In an era of increasing profanity, celebrities are the new saints,” he adds during a tour of the exhibition. “These are the icons to whom we now look for guidance and my choices can make or break them.”

Until recently, however, Eerebout’s craft was under-appreciated. “The photographer used to be at the top of the call sheet,” he says, recalling that actors once dressed themselves for the Oscars. “It was only in the 1980s and 1990s that stylists and creative directors started to become more visible.”

With this exhibition, Eerebout set out to shine a light on a process that usually goes unseen. “I wanted to show my grandma what my day-to-day life looks like,” he says, while admitting that his vocation is often misunderstood. Franchin agrees, adding, “People think of the stylist as someone in a superficial profession, like a personal shopper – only interested in the outer layer.”

Eerebout explains how the red carpet is only the culmination of their work. “It’s an uncomfortable and manufactured situation in which celebrities are gazed upon,” he says. But it is everything that leads up to that final moment that Franchin wants visitors to learn about in Exposure.

For Eerebout, the process begins with looking to muses for inspiration. For the exhibition, he has selected UK singer Harry Styles’s flamboyant jumpsuits and Icelandic singer-songwriter Björk’s spiky headpieces, designed by Japanese milliner Maiko Takeda. But it’s not just fashion that inspires Eerebout. “As stylists, we have to understand the zeitgeist,” he says.

As well as knowing how politics trickles down into fashion – a bread-shaped handbag recently created for the 2026 ITS award parodies the idea of men as the default family breadwinners, for example – the Belgian stylist has an encyclopaedic knowledge of pop-culture references. “I look at subcultures, album covers and street fashion, as well as the intersections with architecture and engineering,” he says, motioning to a structured amber collar by German-Iranian designer Rebar Aziz (pictured above). “But the best way to understand societal references is by sitting in a café and watching the people walking past you. Everyone is a stylist in their own way.”

Looking at the Jean Paul Gaultier dress that Nicole Kidman wore at the 2011 Grammy Awards – a fusion of 19th-century Parisian cabaret with the spirit of London punk – or Maneskin’s glam-rock black-lace top and leather trousers, designed by Christian Boara and on display in the exibition, Eerebout explains that he thinks of styling as an art form that preserves a moment in time. “I never regret a look, because it said something that was worth hearing at the time,” he says.

And, of course, there are the all-important accessories. “A pair of gloves can make or break an outfit,” says Eerebout, motioning to an elegant black leather Schiaparelli pair featuring the maison’s signature gold lock.

Perhaps the most misunderstood part of a stylist’s work, however, is in the final, less tangible stage. “Like modern alchemists, stylists work in the subtle intersection between anatomy and garment,” says Franchin. She is referring to how they create outfits with the wearer in mind, altering the appearance of bodies through small tweaks such as adding a slip underneath a dress to control how the material falls. It’s a reminder that styling is also a form of sculpting. “As a society, we introduce lots of little things to alter the way that our bodies look,” says Eerebout. “There’s a juxtaposition: we often express ourselves by looking like something else.”

Interrogating self expression feels apt in a city that has had to work hard to attract leading fashion talent. “In Trieste, we’re removed from Europe’s fashion capitals,” says Franchin. But that can also be a benefit. “We’re right in the centre of the continent and at a natural crossroads. Fashion here is less influenced by traditional ways of thinking.”

The ITS founder is anchored to her hometown. When the foundation was offered space in Bilbao for its growing archive, she firmly rejected it. “We were born in Trieste and we’ll stay in Trieste,” she says. It seems that this city, with its outsized yet under-the-radar cultural cachet, might just be the perfect place to explain the role of the stylist to the world.

‘Exposure – The Power of Being Seen, from Harry Styles to Lady Gaga’ runs from 26 March 2026 until 3 January 2027.
itsweb.org

Martin Krasnik is the newspaper veteran restoring trust in the media with Denmark’s most resilient title

Alongside wishbone chairs and teak tables, Weekendavisen newspaper has long been a part of the furniture in Denmark’s thinking homes. The elegantly designed broadsheet hits newsstands every Friday and covers society, culture, books and ideas. It features handsome photography and illustrations, as well as plenty of white space. Weekendavisen is unusual in that – for now, at least – it still sells more hard copies than digital subscriptions. Its longtime editor, Martin Krasnik, is a well-known public figure in Denmark, with his distinctive strawberry-blond hair and spectacles.

“We were very late movers online but that was good for us because we avoided the infant mortality of a lot of media,” says Krasnik. He is sitting down with Monocle in his bright, third-floor corner office in the heart of Copenhagen’s shopping district, a short bike ride from where he lives. “We learnt from their mistake of giving digital stuff away for free.” So when Weekendavisen finally went online in 2017, readers had to pay. Today a monthly subscription costs DKK179 (€24). The long-read broadsheet has 20,000 digital subscribers but 30,000 Danes still like to hold the paper version in their hands every week too. Both are respectable figures for a nation that has a population of about six million but, perhaps more importantly, Weekendavisen is in rude financial health.

Like most Danish mainstream media outlets, the paper receives state support. This amounts to about DKK10m (€1.3m), which goes towards a total annual budget of DKK50m (€6.7m). According to Krasnik, the publication, which has a profit margin of 20 per cent, could survive without the funding. Further security comes from Norwegian news group Amedia’s purchase of Weekendavisen’s parent company, Berlingske Media, last year. The group is owned by a foundation that specialises in local newspapers. “We are in a moment in Scandinavian media when everybody just wants to be bigger – and if you’re not bigger, you’ll be eaten,” says Krasnik. Amedia is considered a safe pair of hands in this part of the world and Krasnik insists that the paper’s editorial independence remains unaffected. He points to recent stories that Weekendavisen has run that have been critical of Norway’s relative lack of financial support for Ukraine.

But there are new threats to Weekendavisen’s dominance of the Danish cultural elite’s attention. “We offer a niche, highbrow perspective,” he says. “But that niche has been completely challenged in the past few years.” Krasnik names influential online media outlet Zetland, founded in 2012 and also based in the Danish capital, but it’s not only media start-ups that are doing something new. “Even the daily papers are claiming to be offering the same thing as us these days,” says Krasnik. “They aren’t breaking news. That all happens on social media. Information [a left-leaning Danish broadsheet] has skipped its Saturday paper and, in a few years, I think that the dailies will do the same.”

With its opinionated mix of topical long reads spanning politics, society, culture and science, Weekendavisen is part of a European tradition of newspaper-magazine hybrids, such as Die Zeit or The Economist, says Krasnik. “It’s something that allows you to take a step back and look at whatever everyone has been fighting over that week,” he says. How does that chime with today’s relentless news cycle? “When we started our website, we had the urge to publish every day. And that was a mistake – we felt that we had to keep up with the headlines.” Krasnik mentions the terror attack on Bondi Beach in Australia in December. “You couldn’t not mention something like that on your web page but what was it really about? That’s what we have to look at.”

The solution was to hold editorial meetings every morning rather than just once a week and increase communication between writers and editors – as well as, simply, bringing on more writers. Today, Weekendavisen has about 40 full-time journalists and employs many more freelancers. “Our readers can find everything online in terms of news, so we have to find a balance between the daily pulse and the weekly breath,” says Krasnik.

Another challenge is to attract younger readers. Weekendavisen leans right, which is not where young readers tend to sit politically, and geographically it skews to Copenhagen, which is a strongly left-wing city. “It’s a fruitful tension but our readers come from all over the place,” says Krasnik. “Other Danish newspapers have become more siloed – so [the left-wing] Politiken is more Politiken, [the right-wing] Berlingske more Berlingske. But we are trying not to fall into that trap. Our readers want a well-written, well-researched and maybe challenging perspective.”

One example of this is the publication’s Middle East coverage. Krasnik is one of Denmark’s most prominent Jewish voices and Weekendavisen has covered the Israel-Gaza conflict extensively. “We have insisted on talking to both sides, which might sound banal but it has been a dangerous position,” he says. “And, of course, we have been criticised by both sides.”

We turn our attention to Krasnik’s desk, which he admits is a mess. “People just bring me books all the time,” he says; these are stacked in unruly piles. He says that he is failing to follow his own advice to his writers to read more fiction; over the past year, he has read quite a few titles related to the clash between liberalism and conservatism.

“I think that this is where the big battle is right now,” he says. Krasnik has just finished US political scientist Francis Fukuyama’s Liberalism and Its Discontents, which examines the threats to liberalism from both political wings. When it comes to writing about Europe, Krasnik is a fan of venerable UK historian Norman Davies; for commentary on the Middle East, New York-based Jewish writer Peter Beinart has, he says, “an extremely interesting perspective, even though I disagree with him”.

Krasnik largely shuns social media. He cites The Atlantic, The New Yorker, New York magazine, The Economist and The Spectator as his favoured English-language reads. “I tend to read dailies less and less but I think that the most important daily in the world is Haaretz,” he says. “It is defining Israeli liberal values against this horrible tide of religious, ethno-nationalist bullshit. Everybody should support it.”

While our photographer goes to work, Krasnik turns to the pinboard behind his desk and points to a copy of what he calls the “most important document”: the US Declaration of Independence. “The Americans are tending to forget this or ignore it,” he says. “It’s under threat everywhere.” On the board beside it, there is a pendant from the Estonian town of Narva. Its significance? Narva has an overwhelmingly Russian-speaking population. “It is the most eastern part of Estonia,” says Krasnik. “That’s where war will start if it comes to Nato.”
weekendavisen.dk

Selling in a digital age: Euroshop explores how analogue retail is advancing with AI innovations

Euroshop’s PR department knows how to spin a tale. The website that the retail trade fair has produced to mark its 60th anniversary places its emergence in 1966 alongside the release of The Beatles’ Yellow Submarine and England’s World Cup final victory over West Germany. But it also sketches a wider scene. In the postwar decades, shops underwent radical change as open shelving, new fittings and modern technology displaced cabinet-and-counter arrangements. That shift required a unified voice and a regular industry gathering to give it shape. To underscore the urgency, the original Euroshop organisers even issued a kind of manifesto – What Euroshop Wants – in Düsseldorf’s business newspaper Handelsblatt. “Anyone working in retail has to deal with the large number of trade fairs that they feel compelled to attend,” it read. “It is hardly surprising that for years the community has been calling for a consolidation of these fairs.”

That first edition brought together 333 exhibiting firms from 11 countries. This year’s tally – 1,840 exhibitors from 61 nations – is far larger on both counts, yet the fundamentals remain the same: Euroshop is still about showcasing the latest achievements in the sector. It’s also about networking (hold someone’s gaze for more than two seconds and an exchange of business cards will almost certainly follow), striking deals (Swedish photographic lighting company Profoto made a €100,000 sale just before we arrived) – and opening new markets.

Ana María Quintero Medina, a Colombian interior designer, has been coming to Euroshop for 20 years. During that time her Medellín-based company, Caja Blanca, has helped to introduce some of the exhibiting brands – Italy’s Poliform among them – to South America for the first time. This year she has brought her daughter, Sofía López, who is also an interior designer. “This is a sort of family tradition now,” says López, as the pair pause for lunch at the stand of L&S Lighting Intelligence, an Italian brand that, like many exhibitors at the fair, lays on a full kitchen service. Food, after all, is a remarkably effective way of whetting the appetite for doing business. Most tables are taken as L&S sales managers wax lyrical to potential buyers over pasta and wine but Ana María and Sofía eventually find free seats. “When my mother first started coming here, there was no interior design industry in Colombia to speak of,” says López. “She thought it was very important for me to come too and get to know the latest innovations and trends.”

Those trends, even to a casual visitor, are immediately apparent: retail development is moving in step with the broader direction of travel in the modern world. Across 14 sprawling halls at Messe Düsseldorf, exhibitors emphasise their use of eco-friendly materials and production techniques, as well as their ever-deeper incorporation of AI – not only online but in physical spaces too. A product attracting a lot of attention is a plug-and-play device by Prague-based Minds & Models that scans customers for factors such as age and lifestyle to offer on-the-spot purchasing recommendations, depending on the shop in which it is installed. When tested by Monocle, the results were accurate if a little flattering (mid-thirties, athletic build, healthy lifestyle; the demo was for a grocery shop, so the recommendation was muesli). It is already used in a handful of locations in the Czech Republic, with plans for further expansion after being certified under the EU’s strict privacy rules.

Elsewhere, the march of technology is evident in new refrigeration systems, rotisseries, cash registers and even – in an area devoted to branding and marketing – demonstrations of hologram advertisements. But cutting-edge R&D need not be quite so futuristic. In the lighting hall, Peter Haumer, the head of technical sales at Austrian company Lumitech, stands beside a display showing how various hues enhance specific goods: cold white for cosmetics; warm white for bread and pastries; and a red-pink tone for meat and poultry. “We’re highlighting the product because, simply put, the aim of the retailer is to sell,” Haumer says.

Yet lighting science can do more than boost sales. A freezer-cabinet LED developed by Lumitech can switch from 4,000 kelvin, or neutral white, to a proprietary colour called “natural meat”, which helps prolong the shelf life of produce by slowing photo-oxidation. Some German shops are already using it. “But you still have to check [the freshness] – we don’t want to manipulate the customer,” Haumer adds, as he flicks the switch back.

For all the innovation on show here, some things endure. No large store, however automated, can dispense with shopping trolleys – and in this, as in shelving and displays, Central European companies excel, drawing on longstanding manufacturing bases that stretch back to communist times. Grupa Kon-Plast from Poland specialises in plastic baskets – mostly handheld and midsized wheeled varieties – that it sells to supermarket chains and distribution firms in the EU, Georgia, Ukraine and the UK. Its chief executive, Henryk Kaminski, is beaming: proud that, since starting in the early days of Polish capitalism in 1992, he has weathered every storm and kept ahead of the competition. More at ease in German than in English, he raises his index finger and declares his company “Nummer eins” before waving goodbye.

Equally indispensable are mannequins. In the hall, they stand slightly off to one side, eerily immobile as crowds swirl around them. The companies that make them are few and tend to be small, with unexpectedly rich histories. Hülya Meriç Korkmaz and her sculptor brother Hakan run Meriç Display Mannequins, a Turkish company started by their father Rafet, also a sculptor, in the early 1960s. She produces a photograph of him in Istanbul, taken by celebrated Turkish-Armenian photographer Ara Güler. This is the company’s eighth time exhibiting at Euroshop, so Meriç Korkmaz speaks from experience when she describes how mannequins, like everything else, fall victim to fashion and shifting sensibilities, waistlines narrowing and widening in turn. The harshest change, however, came in the 2010s when facial features began to disappear. “Before, you could generally understand the age of the mannequin from its face and makeup,” she says. “But now you cannot tell.” Faceless mannequins have made it easier for clothing brands to arrange their displays but they also ushered in fiercer competition for manufacturers who relied, as the Meriçs still do, on sculptural expertise.

While this particular trend is worrying – nobody wants to see storied companies vanish – one impression lingers after visiting Euroshop, especially for those who attend the fair in its entirety: that despite everything, analogue still defines the retail experience. As shops evolve, they remain real spaces that require physical things. And the manufacturers of those things still need, just as they did 60 years ago, a physical place to meet.

Exploring Japan’s most original retailers: Six in-person concept stores with delightful offerings

1.
Best sporting concept
4BFC
Sendagaya, Tokyo

Founded by four Japanese football fans, 4BFC celebrates global football culture from its base near Japan National Stadium. “We began with the idea of a clubhouse,” says co-founder Takashi Ogami, who is also behind Tokyo-based football-culture magazine Shukyu. “It’s not only a shop but a place where people can gather and all kinds of events can be held.” Since opening in 2023, the tiny space has become a game-day destination for local and visiting fans alike, while also serving as a key stopover for independent brands and creators from around the world. Pop-up events merge sport with fashion, craft and more, drawing interest from beyond the sporting world.

On the shop floor, there are no studded boots or pieces of training equipment. Instead, you are more likely to find vintage J-League and Premier League shirts sourced by co-founder Toshiki Morita of Bene, issues of football-focused Shukyu Magazine and other small-press publications, World Cup-themed throw rugs and various left-field merchandise and memorabilia. Beyond this eclectic selection, 4BFC shows the value of a community hub. Its clubhouse-inspired approach has given rise to a Tokyo- and London-based team, Bene Football Club, while a northern outpost is currently planned for Sendai.

2.
Best ‘konbini’ concept
Convenience Wear
Shibaura, Tokyo

The Japanese konbini (convenience store) is an exemplary retail machine but few had spotted its fashion potential until Familymart – operator of more than 16,000 of them in Japan – worked with Tokyo designer Hiromichi Ochiai to launch Convenience Wear in 2021. Its line-up of T-shirts, hand towels and crew socks was launched to immediate acclaim. With sales now surpassing 30 million pairs of socks and 10 million towel handkerchiefs, Convenience Wear has become a potent force. Last autumn the brand was given its own unmanned shop in Tokyo with the full range of 150 to 200 products. There are samples and large mirrors instead of fitting rooms and customers pay for their purchases at a self-service till. The roster changes with the weather: expect nylon shorts, half-length joggers and sunglasses for summer.

Ochiai has done a stellar job of keeping Convenience Wear’s appeal broad and its quality high, while enlisting respected fashion names for limited-edition collaborations. Sales of ¥20bn (€103m) are projected for 2026, a year-on-year increase of 150 per cent. Influential fashion designer and entrepreneur Nigo is Familymart’s creative director and fans are looking forward to seeing his new format flagship, which is due to open in Tokyo this summer. Familymart is showing the way forward for other konbini retailers.
family.co.jp

3.
Best traditional remix
Goyemon Shibuya
Shibuya, Tokyo

“Traditional Japanese products possess so much depth and history, cultivated over many years,” says Goyemon co-founder Kenta Takeuchi. “They’re so stylish but they often don’t quite fit into life in the current Reiwa era,” adds his fellow co-founder, Ai Onishi. “As designers, we use the latest technology to update their functionality and convey their coolness to the next generation.”

The design brand’s ethos has been translated into spatial form at its sole retail outpost in Shibuya. Incense fills the light-toned interior with an air of calm, while plywood and stainless-steel fixtures are topped with waterproof tatami woven with synthetic fibres. This mixture of tradition and technology, new and old, sets the scene for the brand’s line-up of original products. There’s the signature Unda, a setta sandal and trainer hybrid; Ancoh, a solar-powered washi-paper lantern with an adjustable LED fitting; as well as innovative takes on knives, glassware and apparel.

Its location away from Shibuya’s commercial heart has called for some creative thinking. There’s a gachapon vending machine and branded items including baseball caps and coffee beans available exclusively in store. Playful and reasonably priced, they boost the shop’s destination appeal while adding a layer of accessibility. The design studio is nextdoor, bringing brand and customer even closer together. “During the design process, we always discover bits of traditional knowledge that we can’t wait to share,” says Takeuchi. “That’s the value of having a space like this.”
goyemon.tokyo.

4.
Best footwear concept
OAO Haus Kyoto
Gion, Kyoto

Harnessing the power of both the physical and the digital has always been a key pillar for footwear brand OAO, co-founded in 2019 by software designer Takaaki Itagaki.

The label launched as a “creative foot-gear laboratory” with a direct-to-consumer focus, combining e-commerce with pop-up events featuring installations by artists and creators. Before long, an appointment-only showroom opened in Tokyo and has been central to its strategy ever since.

In December 2025, OAO opened a Kyoto showroom inside a Gion building filled with bars, clubs and other nightlife businesses. “These days, most new shops in Kyoto take old, traditional Japanese houses and modernise them with steel and concrete,” says Itagaki. “But I was drawn to the unique, Gion-like atmosphere of this building. It’s a bit daunting to enter. You would never expect to find a trainers shop here.”

Keen to localise the concept even further, the brand found inspiration in Kyoto’s traditional roof tiles. Tokyo-based studio Daikei Mills designed an installation-like interior with old tiles repurposed as displays, while the use of yakisugi (charred cedar), exposed walls and vintage speakers provide some layers of tactility. For visitors to the showroom, many of whom encounter OAO through its smoothly designed online presence, the space nurtures a new appreciation for the substance of products, ranging from the company’s signature Sunlight series to Osakamade Les Arcs boots.
oaofootwear.com

5.
Best retail hospitality concept
Vermicular at Takanawa Gateway
Minato, Tokyo

When brothers Kuni and Tomo Hijikata inherited the family foundry in Nagoya, they switched from making parts for ships to the world’s finest enamelled cooking pots. The brand that they launched, Vermicular, has a new flagship – part shop, part restaurant, part bakery – in Tokyo’s Takanawa Gateway development. The versatile oven pot is still the signature item but it is now joined by a rice cooker and cast-iron pots and pans. The sales pitch is that once you try the products, you won’t go back to regular cookware. A demonstration kitchen allows passers-by to try rice or freshly sautéed bamboo shoots. There’s a restaurant where the dishes are cooked in Vermicular pots and a bakery that uses Vermicular loaf pans and mini skillets.

For the interior, designer Yoshitaka Okuma of Tokyo studio Line-Inc used earth flooring and metallic textures with a handmade mortar finish on the walls. “The shop was designed to let visitors experience the atmosphere of a factory and the essence of Japanese-made craftsmanship,” he says. The brand is growing fast and moving into the food business with a frozen deli line and meal kits; a sharp, easy-to-maintain knife will go on sale in May. “Being in a complex allows us to reach not only customers already familiar with Vermicular but also those discovering the brand for the first time,” says the company’s Kumiko Kato.
vermicular.jp; line-inc.co.jp

6.
Best factory shop concept
Sotogawa to Nakami
Hasami, Nagasaki prefecture

Hasami-based manufacturer Iwasaki Shiki has been making packaging since 1960. “Most of our work has been behind the scenes until now,” says third-generation head Hirotaka Iwasaki. “Our speciality is haribako [rigid boxes] but, as times change, many of our fellow manufacturers are going out of business. For this industry to continue, we need to be seen.”

To realise this vision, Iwasaki sought out Tokyo-based buyer Yu Yamada of Method, who has built a reputation on working with regional manufacturing businesses across Japan. “In the past we would have made a shop but I’m now more interested in ‘micro-complexes’, in which retail is just one part,” says Iwasaki. “The key element is a whitecube gallery, which adds something fresh to the town, while forging new connections with the creative sector.”

Designed by Nagasaki-born Takeshi Nishio, the Sotogawa to Nakami complex opened last autumn. The gallery holds regular exhibitions, guided by Yamada’s curatorial expertise, spreading the destination’s appeal beyond just packaging and paper enthusiasts. There’s also a shop filled with the company’s original products, as well as those wrapped in its packaging, while the upstairs café includes a box archive and workspaces. An in-store “Box Lab” creates made-to-order products in the customer’s choice of paper. Iwasaki is optimistic about the future. “By adding to Hasami’s appeal, Sotogawa to Nakami can contribute not only to our company but the town as a whole.”
sotonaka.jp