Issues

In designer Gabriel Tan’s Porto townhouse, home and studio find common ground

When Gabriel Tan moved into a tall, narrow townhouse in Porto in 2020, he didn’t expect his horizons to broaden significantly. The Singapore-born designer had already made a name for himself designing for the likes of Kyushu-based furniture brand Ariake and The Conran Shop, which has a strong retail presence in Japan and South Korea. But it was in Portugal that his career took a new direction with the creation of his craft-inspired label, Origin Made. “I underestimated how much your environment shapes your work,” he says, explaining the pull of the country’s manufacturing heritage. “If I had known that it would have had such a big impact on me, maybe I would have come earlier.”

Origin Made’s studio and showroom occupies the ground floor of Tan’s Porto home, to which he welcomes Monocle on a crisp autumn day. The brand is based in a long room with stone walls and exposed wooden beams. “There used to be a separate entrance for residents who live upstairs and for whoever rented the shopfront, which made this space into a dark corridor,” says Tan. With two independent circulation routes running through it, the floor had originally been split down the middle. Tan removed the dividing wall, allowing natural light to travel its full length. Now, at one end, furniture including a wood-and-rattan table and cord-woven stools is neatly arranged alongside smaller, more sculptural pieces, such as metal candleholders and ceramic vases. At the other end, Tan’s desk faces a window looking onto a small but lush back garden. Between them, a handful of staff are working quietly around a shared table.

The pieces on show have an earthy quality but they’re far from rugged. Some are Tan’s creations; others are by international designers working with Origin Made – all are produced in small workshops and factories in and around Porto. This proximity to manufacturing, something that Tan had been missing in Singapore, was what had initially drawn him to the city. “A lot of the time, the design changes when you are meeting face to face,” he says. “The live prototyping at a factory is so valuable.”

Tan bought the 19th-century townhouse in 2018 after a tip from friend and fellow Porto-based designer Christian Haas. He had caught wind that the home’s previous owner, a French travel writer, was looking to downsize. The location, Rua do Almada, has long been associated with commerce and workshops. Its typical buildings, with street-level workspaces, were exactly what Tan was hunting for. “It’s not such a common feature in the city; more often there’s this semi-basement and then you go straight upstairs.” He enlisted Porto architect Patricia Leite, whose practice conveniently occupied the shopfront at the time and who had previously worked on the building, to help with the renovations. Much of the original structure – including the façade, stone walls and central U-shaped staircase – was kept intact. From the outside, the townhouse blends seamlessly into the street. “We didn’t want to be too loud,” says Tan. By comparison, the interior works were substantial, taking nearly two years. Rooms were expanded beyond the original footprint and an entire new floor was added. “We turned a two-and-a-half-storey house into four storeys, with two balconies at the top.”

Moving up through the house, the spaces become increasingly private, from the studio to the common spaces directly above and the bedrooms on the top two floors. The palette of whites, beiges and pale timbers throughout – naturally lit through large windows out front and back, plus a central skylight – gives the house a sense of stillness.

The first-floor kitchen, with ash-wood carpentry and a generous central island, looks across the garden and is shared at lunchtimes between the family and studio employees.

In the evenings, sensory cues of home – the smell of dinner being prepared, the sound of children settling in – signal the end of the working day. “If your office is elsewhere, you can easily stay until late,” says Tan, whose wife, Cherie, co-founded Origin Made. “But as soon as we come upstairs, we feel that we’re leaving work behind.”

That might be true but there’s not much chance of escaping Tan’s work here: every piece of furniture was either carefully curated or designed by him. “We sold all our stuff in Singapore when we came and just brought some clothes here,” he says. This is evident in the uncluttered interiors, with no odd family heirlooms or trinkets atop shelves. There’s a sense that little has ended up here by accident: artworks are similarly consistent, all by Lisbon-based Polish artist Tomek Sadurski, whose abstract floating curves pair well with Tan’s preference for soft forms.

Still, each piece tells an individual story and together they demonstrate the prolific nature of Tan’s Portuguese chapter so far. It was also while in the Iberian country that his designs began to enter the catalogues of heritage international brands such as Herman Miller and Louis Poulsen. His modular Soft Stone sofa, launched in 2026 for Munich-based Classicon, sits alongside the prototype armchair that led to its development. “It was created with a local upholsterer,” says Tan. The design was inspired by stone structures in the landscaping of a nearby park. “I used to go there a lot during the pandemic and use it as my outdoor office. I would sit on the stones to sketch and think, what if they were softened?” Around the dining table, several versions of Origin Made’s Almada chair, made in collaboration with a cord weaver in nearby town Paços de Ferreira, show how much a design can change during the creative provess. Each iteration varies slightly – the distance between the legs, the weaving pattern on the seat – before arriving at the in-production version. “As a small brand, you can do this – you are more agile,” he says. “Bigger brands have more established distribution channels and dealers get upset if you change the design a lot.”

That agility extends beyond Tan’s designs. Working at a small scale also gives him freedom to rescue and champion other people’s work – pieces that might otherwise have gone by the wayside. The three spherical oak lamps by Finnish designer Jenni Roininen that hang above the dining table, for example, had been discontinued until Origin Made took over production. A sculptural vase, its surface ribbed with what look like finger marks, was developed from a handmade original that Tan saw at a friend’s house. He liked it enough to bring its creator, Ruben Costa, into the brand’s catalogue, 3D-scanning the piece and developing a mould that enables it to be reproduced in batches of 50. “The way that we approach collectible design is not through limited runs but small runs,” says Tan. “We aren’t making 10 and stopping. Our goal is to keep the product’s lifespan as long as we can.”

Upstairs, these craft-inspired pieces are set against a greater variety of aesthetics. Two wedge-shaped column lamps that Tan designed with a Japanese washi artist stand amid his leather, glass and metal collection (a desk, bedside tables and screen) that was created for B&B Italia in 2023. “They can coexist,” he says. It’s also up here where the house’s architectural details are most evident, with ash frames around doors and windows, recalling the detailing of Japanese interiors. “We also removed the fake ceilings to expose the original pitched roofs,” he says. The bathroom, which Tan says took the longest to complete, is a stripped-back, raw space in a grey terrazzo with a shower suspended above a monolithic bathtub. Narrow horizontal openings directly below the ceiling direct in natural light from the skylights, illuminating otherwise enclosed rooms.

In the bedrooms, Tan’s grip on the interiors loosens. There are a couple of vintage pieces, including a dark-green armchair (perhaps the only coloured piece in the house) from Swedish brand Dux that was given to him by a friend and a Thonet chair that used to stand around the dining table before being replaced by one of his designs. Two acoustic guitars and a standing bike also hint at the family’s pastimes. In the children’s room is one of his more whimsical pieces: a floor bed shaped like a car, made for his son. It’s a reminder that while Tan’s residence might serve as his studio, with colleagues sitting around the kitchen table, it’s also a place for his family, which has grown up in Porto as much as Origin Made has as a brand and Tan as a designer.

‘We don’t work to confirm the biases of our readers.’ Jan Martínez Ahrens on defending democracy in the age of junk information

El País published its first edition in 1976, less than six months after the death of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco. Its founder, José Ortega Spottorno, was the son of exiled philosopher José Ortega y Gasset and the great-grandson of newspaperman Eduardo Gasset y Artime. He wanted the newspaper to be the leading progressive voice in the country’s nascent free press.

In 1978 a new constitution established Spain as a democratic state. Less than three years later, members of the Civil Guard and the Spanish Army attempted a coup, holding parliamentarians hostage for 18 hours. As tanks took to the streets that February evening, El País was the country’s only paper to go to press. The headline on the front page was unequivocal: “‘El País’, con la constitución” (“El País, with the constitution”).

This act of integrity is one that Jan Martínez Ahrens, the current editor in chief, keeps front of mind. As he welcomes Monocle into his wood-panelled office in Madrid, he points at a framed copy of the 1981 front page that hangs on the wall. It was the first thing that he brought into the office when he took up the top job in 2025.

“This is a newspaper that has always had deeply held political views,” he says. “We are independent. We believe in diversity and are a progressive paper.” In the calm of his library-like office, he sits on a black leather sofa. The shelves here are filled with novels, books on newspaper design, El País style guides and magazines including The Economist.

Today, Martínez Ahrens is wearing a navy suit over a light-blue shirt and brown suede moccasin boots. He describes his sartorial style as “formal-casual”. It serves him well as he moves between meals and meetings, and takes the stairs to the newsroom, where his team prepares the day’s stories. “There are some places where it’s still necessary to wear a tie but I feel that etiquette has relaxed a bit – though Mexico demands more formality,” he says. El País has about 400 journalists working from its Spanish base, as well as newsrooms in Brussels, Mexico City and Washington, with correspondents elsewhere. The paper publishes six digital international editions that cover Latin America, Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Argentina and the US in separate Spanish-and English-language versions. Almost all of the foreign editions are led by local journalists, helping to ensure that El País has authority as a paper offering a broader view of the world.

After starting his career at the publication in 1992, Martínez Ahrens spent almost 10 years living in Mexico City, first as the correspondent for the region and later as editor in chief of El País América. He recalls his time in Mexico fondly – as is evident from the mementos that are scattered around his office, including an alebrije (a Mexican folk sculpture) and mugs emblazoned with wrestling-mask designs.

Between 1992 and 2014, Martínez Ahrens went from being a freelance journalist at El País to heading sections including Sociedad, covering issues such as the legalisation of same-sex marriage in Spain in 2005. During Donald Trump’s ascent to the White House, he was based in Washington as the newspaper’s US correspondent. Then, in 2020, he helped El País to transition to the digital space with its first digital-subscription model, under the then editor in chief, Soledad Gallego-Díaz.

The daily online audience for El País has since grown to about four million and the publication now has over 490,000 subscribers across all its editions. Today only the Spanish edition is printed and El País offers a hybrid monthly subscription (at a cost of €25) that combines digital access with the delivery of its weekend print editions and magazine supplements.

Despite the impressive numbers, El País’s parent company, Grupo Prisa, faces a debt of about €779m, which it has agreed to repay by 2029. This was mostly accumulated just before the global financial crisis of 2007 and 2008, as a result of overspending on TV and radio projects. In March 2026, Grupo Prisa announced a plan to boost the revenue of its media arm, which encompasses El País, to €520m over the next three years – up from the €430m that it earned in 2025. Its projections include an increase of the newspaper’s overall subscribers to 800,000, with plans for further expansion into Latin America.

While Martínez Ahrens tells Monocle that he can’t speak about Grupo Prisa’s ambitions, he highlights the checks and balances that are in place to ensure that those holding the conglomerate’s debt have no influence over El País’s editorial stance. These include a code of conduct and having journalists from the paper on El País’s board of directors. “The editor in chief has veto power over everything that is published, including ads,” he says.

The coming months will be challenging for the team. The Spanish housing crisis has resulted in widespread protests and the country’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has called a snap election that will be held at the end of November. “Spain faces the possibility that, for the first time in our democracy, the far right will govern – though, according to polls, it would do so as a partner of the [right-wing] People’s Party,” says Martínez Ahrens. “The Spanish far right has shown itself to be more radical than [the followers of] Marine Le Pen and Giorgia Meloni. It’s foreseeable that the public discourse will be radically polarised with such a result.”

Critics accuse El País of aligning itself with the centre-left Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE), which is currently in government. “That has been used to attempt to discredit the newspaper but the answer can be found on our front page and our website,” says Martínez Ahrens. “We don’t answer to a particular party. We answer to our convictions and the journalistic path that we have forged.”

The editor in chief links the growing public distrust of mainstream newspapers to “the crisis suffered by the media between 2008 and 2010, when the 19th-century print model – which we viewed as linear and easy because it made us money based on newsstand sales – fell apart”. “Some thought that they could simply apply the same model to the digital landscape, in which a high number of subscribers would result in high economic returns,” he adds. “That resulted in a string of failures and weakened lots of titles. And it led many down a terrible path of reliance on clickbait.”

This year, El País reached its 50th anniversary. Martínez Ahrens partly attributes its longevity to its refusal to publish “información basura” – low-quality information that he compares to junk food. Instead, the team focuses on separating fact from opinion. Regardless of changes in the industry, the editor in chief is clear about his publication’s responsibilities. “We don’t work to confirm the biases of our readers,” he says. “A newspaper’s duty is to do good journalism.”

Cathay Pacific unarchives eight decades of uniform designs for its anniversary year

As part of Cathay Pacific’s 80th anniversary celebrations, more than 1,000 employees are sporting heritage uniforms until the end of 2026. The design that’s most likely to turn heads is the oldest: a blue, military-inspired two-piece and a box hat from 1946. The airline introduced its first red jacket for female crew in 1962. “Over time, red has become identifiable as one of our colours,” Eva Ng, Cathay Pacific’s general manager of inflight service delivery, tells Monocle.

From the 1970s to the 1990s, the airline collaborated with French luxury houses on uniforms to bring a high-fashion flourish to the world of aviation. Hermès added a vibrant tailplane-print blouse, while Nina Ricci introduced the power suit, reflecting the carrier’s confidence and sophistication.

It wasn’t until 1999 that Cathay Pacific started looking to native designers rather than Western houses, commissioning Hong Kong couturier Eddie Lau to create a look that embodied the company’s cultural identity. No stranger to working with stars such as actor and Cantopop icon Leslie Cheung, Lau brought his panache for sharp runway looks to the aeroplane aisle. He created a sleek, red jacket with an open collar and paired it with a white blouse bearing the classic brushwing logo.

Lau’s landmark design has since been a mainstay of the airline’s wardrobe, albeit with refinements. In 2011 the couturier came out of retirement to swap out the male crew’s navy-blue fits for olive-toned waistcoats, striped ties and a new take on the mandarin-collar jackets.

Today, 15 years on, Lau’s design remains a point of pride for Cathay Pacific. “Every time I meet new joiners, I see how excited they are to put on the uniform,” says Ng. More than just workwear, it has become a polished mark of distinction.
cathaypacific.com

This Melbourne-born social club is making Amsterdam’s chess culture social, noisy, and young again

It’s a Thursday at No Man’s Art Gallery in Amsterdam. Patrons are hunched over chessboards. In the middle of it all, a DJ is mixing, while the hosts of the monthly Acid Chess Club – 27-year-old Tayla Iakovidis and 29-year-old Matt Bodger – greet arrivals and pair them up. “I try to sense who’s here to socialise and who wants to play seriously – and whether they would rather face someone at their level or more advanced,” says Bodger, who works in wearable climate tech and first came here as an attendee.

Like Iakovidis, the club hails from Melbourne, where it was founded in 2021 by artist Jack Irvine and James Benjamin, a festival organiser and musician. Acid Chess Club is also Benjamin’s DJ name – he carries a chessboard in his bag that he whips out at parties. The idea arrived after James helped Irvine sharpen his game. In Melbourne, the club has grown from three players to about 150 who flock to twice-monthly nights.

Its international reach grew as regulars moved overseas and took the format with them. “We’re about to start one in Tokyo and three more in Australia,” says Benjamin. “I can’t keep up.” The first international edition launched in London in August 2024, followed by Amsterdam in December 2025, set up by Iakovidis and Tal Sardone, a chef from Melbourne. “Amsterdammers are such doers, so I figured it was the kind of place where you could set something up easily,” says Sardone. Like many chess enthusiasts, he started playing online during the pandemic, partly inspired by Netflix series The Queen’s Gambit, and came to the Melbourne events to play against people in person. “Clubs like ours have changed the stereotypes of chess – it’s not just a game for quiet people in quiet rooms any more.”

“This is one of the busiest nights yet,” Iakovidis tells Monocle, estimating that there are about 50 participants here. The club is now seeking a bigger venue or perhaps even its own space. Every night ends with a tournament: 16 players compete for a block of cheese from the local deli.

It’s a way for young people to connect without screens. “When every tech lord is trying to put AI in our toothbrushes and earrings, being offline is a luxury,” says Bodger. “We’re regaining our freedom.”
No Man’s Art Gallery, Bos en Lommerweg 88-90, Amsterdam

In Sharjah ‘The Direct Line’ phone-in show is turning radio into a forum (and solution) for residents’ problems

In Emirati society, the majlis is the traditional forum for discussing daily events and resolving issues. As conflicts in the wider Middle East reverberate closer to home – with missile and drone fire intermittently breaching the UAE’s skies – Sharjah is offering a more modern take on the idea. Al Khat Al Mubasher (“The Direct Line”) is a phone-in programme on Sharjah Radio and Sharjah TV, broadcast live from Monday to Thursday at 13.30. Over its 90-minute running time, government officials troubleshoot residents’ concerns about pensions, property and more.

The format is simple but there’s a lot going on behind the scenes. In the gallery, producers wearing kanduras (loose-fitting, ankle-length robes) hurry between consoles, operating 24 lines that each receive more than 100 calls a day. The host only discusses a handful of these on air but every caller is logged and many later hear back from a state official.

Sometimes, that official is Sultan bin Muhammad Al-Qasimi, Sharjah’s ruler, who has made more than 175 live calls and given some 30,000 off-air responses to people’s problems since the show’s inception two decades ago. When the studio’s white-corded telephone rings, the team drops everything: a call from him always brings drama.

The programme’s visuals are unflashy but charmingly retro. A broadcast camera focuses on the presenter, while there are rows of ageing but reliable mixers and chunky monitors in the control room, blinking with callers’ details. It’s a surprisingly old-school set-up for a country known for its technological ambition – but it works.

When Monocle visits the bustling studio, one case that’s being discussed involves a resident whose neighbour has built a wall that makes a slight incursion into their property. A general manager of the municipality calls the programme to assure the caller that the case will be reviewed. If the complaint is valid, he adds, “We will fund the work of fixing it.” Then someone on another line explains that the retirement salary that his family had depended on stopped following his father’s death. An official phones in to say that the payment will be reinstated. Al Khat Al Mubasher doesn’t reinvent public service. It simply cuts the distance between the authorities and the public. Non-Arabic speakers now use it to discuss visa and documentation concerns. Others reach out from across the Gulf. Where else can you raise a vexing bureaucratic problem live on air and have it solved before you put down your phone?

Cool heads will prevail: Priscilla Royer on the glorious return of the hat

Priscilla Royer has been at the creative helm of historic Paris hatmaker Maison Michel for more than a decade. She’s constantly refreshing and refining signature silhouettes such as the Kiki boater or the Virginie fedora but also makes a point of introducing bold new designs that mirror the zeitgeist. She answered fashion’s turn towards streetwear with elegant versions of the bucket hat crafted in glossy leather and expanded the Maison Michel universe to all types of headwear, including foldable straw fedoras that are rooted in practicality and charming coquetteries such as barrettes and turbans.

Having studied fashion at Studio Berçot in Paris and worked for the scene’s favourite rebel, Vivienne Westwood, in London, Royer is always thinking differently about the industry and is acutely aware of how hats are worn across cultures: a means of self-expression for some, social decorum for others – or simply as a shield from the sun. She aims to offer something for everyone.

Sitting in her light-filled office in le19m (Maison Michel was acquired by Chanel in 1997 and its ateliers are now part of the company’s Métiers d’Art hub), Royer looks fresh and upbeat. She’s wearing a loose black sweater by Chanel and colourful DIY bracelets made by her daughter. It’s the morning after the Chanel spring/summer 2027 presentation and the entire team, which produces hats for Chanel, is still buzzing. In the past year, Royer has worked alongside Chanel’s artistic director, Matthieu Blazy, to design everything from playful swim bonnets to a bold headband shaped like a tiger’s head. The latter was crafted by hand on a custom wooden mould in the brand’s new woodcarving workshop.

As Maison Michel toasts its 90th birthday, Royer gives us a tour of the workshops and tells us why now is the time to dress up and have fun with hats again.

How important has it been to bring all of your workshops in-house?
It made everything better. We can now say that we have mastered the genesis of a hat, including woodcarving and creating new shapes from custom wooden moulds. For the past 40 years, Maison Michel worked with an external artisan woodcarver who, before he retired, agreed to train two of our hatmakers. It was something very sensitive for the house. We could have lost that expertise when the woodcarver retired. But now at le19m, the transmission is pretty much done. We had a few people who retired and the younger generation is already taking over. I can smell it already – there’s a new, modern way of thinking about craft throughout the building.

How have you used the archives and proximity to the artisans when designing collections?
The maison used to acquire archives from all the milliners that were closing down, as well as from theatre troupes and film sets. So we have a huge library of crowns and brims. It gives us so many possibilities to research and create new combinations. I usually have a certain image in my head or a feeling, then the hatmakers help me find the right mould from our library. I can always lean on the atelier – they will always tell me what’s technically viable. The rest is creativity and making sure that you’re always pushing the boundaries.

Are artisanal skills becoming even more valuable in our current age of technology?
The handmade touch is non-negotiable for us. No AI or industrial tool can make hats this way, so there’s no threat to us. We’re quite spoiled, working in this bubble that sits above the current debates around technology. Some machines date back to the 20th century here and the techniques that we use haven’t changed since then.

Production methods might not have changed but the ways in which we get dressed have. Have you had to rethink hat design since joining the brand?
The house was like this beautiful pearl in my hand: I just had to polish it a little bit and present hats in a more modern way. My goal is to show people that you can wear a hat, even though it’s 2026 and you’re not obliged to wear one to go out of your house. You can use them to express your style and personality, plus there are practical uses. I want to meet people halfway between style and functionality. That’s why I’m always moving between smaller statement pieces and very functional designs that have UV protection or can roll in your suitcase.

How are people wearing hats today?
We’re returning to the concept of dressing up and having different hats for different occasions: you might wear your beanie to go out to the market on a Sunday but you will have a special straw hat for your holiday. It goes beyond choosing an outfit – what you put on your head is a bold move because it’s so much more visible. It requires a lot of confidence, so I always recommend trying as many hats as possible to find the right one. It usually happens the moment that you stop laughing at yourself in the mirror and realise that you actually feel good. There are no rules. You shouldn’t be choosing hats according to your face shape or hair style. It’s a question of style, personality and identity.

You also design hats for Chanel. What has it been like to experience the house’s latest chapter under Matthieu Blazy?
There’s a huge shift in terms of creativity and experimentation. We’re more stimulated and there’s more synergy between the workshops. Things feel even more possible, whether it’s embroidery on a hat or some feathers on a beanie. The tiger fascinator that we designed for Chanel’s Métiers d’Art show in New York was special because it’s also very close to Maison Michel’s own DNA to play with ears, animals and this idea of disguise.

Tell us about the exhibition currently on show in Paris to celebrate the house’s 90th anniversary.
The exhibition very intentionally starts from the forest, where you can see the woodcarving process. It’s important to talk about the birth of a hat from a technical perspective but also to make the public rediscover the joy of wearing hats. If you think about it, they’re all around us: caps, beanies, hair clips, helmets worn by bikers or construction workers. It’s all headwear. They used to be a bigger part of our daily routines before conventions started to collapse and we moved from couture to ready-to-wear. But now feels like a moment to embrace hats again and just have fun.

The exhibition ‘Metamorphoses: Hats by Maison Michel’ is on show at La Galerie du 19M in Paris until 13 December.
michel-paris.com; le19m.com

Cold-weather picks from The Monocle Shop: From merino knitwear to a packable duffel

Whether you want to piece together your winter look or an eye-catching jigsaw puzzle, we have just what you need for the season.

Spanish merino crewneck & Spanish merino cardigan
€190 and €245

Designed and developed in-house by the Monocle team, these knitwear pieces are spun from Spanish merino wool and made in Spain by knitwear specialist Pyratex. The crewneck has a relaxed fit, while the cardigan has a regular-to-roomy fit and high centre-front closure for easy layering.

Colour: Rust, anthracite or garden green
Made in: Portugal

Comb set by Petz Hornmanufaktur
€75

Handcrafted in Petz Hornmanufaktur’s Vienna workshop, this men’s pocket comb is made from cattle horn sourced from Africa. Beyond milling the teeth, every stage of the production process is done by hand. The Monocle logo marks out this set as a genuine collaboration piece.

Colour: Natural
Made in: Austria

Wool watch cap by Cableami
€105

This wool watch cap from Japanese hatmaker Cableami stands out as a desirable addition to any cold-weather wardrobe. Available in grey melange or navy, the hat features a single-turn cuff.

Colour: Grey melange or navy
Made in: Japan

Travel Shopper by Southern Field Industries
€250

This special edition of the brand’s classic tote was developed at its workshop in Saitama, exclusively for Monocle. Made from Japanese waxed-cotton canvas and vegetable-tanned leather, the bag has a luggage strap on the back. A double-layered base provides extra structure and durability.

Colour: Khaki or acorn
Made in: Japan

Wool-cashmere scarf by Moon
€110

Moon brings generations of expertise to this wool-cashmere scarf, developed with Monocle. Made with 90 per cent merino lambswool sourced from Australia and 10 per cent cashmere yarn spun in Italy, the scarf was designed and produced at the brand’s mill in Leeds.

Colour: Navy, grey or orange
Made in: UK

Packable duffel by Texnh
€395

Designed exclusively for Monocle by Japanese accessories brand Texnh, this packable duffel bag is made in Tokyo with lightweight rip-stop nylon and finished with a waterproof leather trim. It features a luggage strap on the back.

Colour: Black or navy
Made in: Japan

World map puzzle by Ravensburger
€40

This 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle commissioned by Monocle was made in Germany by Ravensburger. Printed on thick, blue-backed cardboard with fine linen-structured paper, it doubles as a geography lesson – and, once framed after completion, will add visual flair to your home.

Colour: Navy, grey or orange
Made in: Germany

Suede jacket by Valstar
€1,165

Featuring two front pockets and a corduroy collar, this Italian jacket is crafted from 100 per cent untreated lamb-suede leather, giving it a rich, velvety feel. Milan-based label Valstar is renowned for its military-inspired outerwear, craft-led manufacturing and commitment to sourcing materials from Italy. Its main claim to fame was producing the first all-Italian-made raincoat.

Colour: Dark blue or olive brown
Made in: Italy

‘There is never a simple generational evolution’: Prada Group CEO Andrea Guerra on the importance of taking risks while staying authentic

In the central octagon of Milan’s Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II is a mosaic of a bull that, according to local lore, will bring you good fortune if you place your heel on the toro’s prairie oysters and spin three times. Throughout the day, crowds pass through the 19th-century shopping arcade that links Piazza del Duomo with Piazza della Scala, pausing to take photos of the vaulted glass ceilings or admire the window displays of luxury boutiques.

It’s here, under the auspices of the luck-bringing bovine artwork, that Prada opened the doors of its renovated flagship in September. Dubbed the Prada Galleria, the retail outpost comprises eight storeys split across two buildings, linked by an underground passage. Visitors can find the latest in women’s and men’s ready-to-wear, accessories, leather goods, jewellery and beauty, as well as invite-only shopping suites, a space to host private events, a Marchesi 1824 pasticceria and a Pradasphere exhibition that delves into the history of the house. It’s something of a behemoth. It’s also a homecoming – the flagship encompasses the ground-floor shop where Mario and Martino Prada launched their leather goods brand in 1913.

To guide Monocle through the labyrinthine, multilevel shop is Prada Group’s CEO, Andrea Guerra. “With this project we’re explaining our roots, where we come from and how we want to behave in this world,” he says, as he shows us through the heavy glass doors. The first stop on our itinerary is the Pradasphere. “We’re taking the time to go deep, to go wide and to tell a multifaceted story,” says Guerra, pointing out pieces from the brand’s archive, which includes beauty travel cases from the 1930s, its first foray into nylon (a Prada signature) from the 1980s and spacesuits from the 2020s developed in partnership with US aerospace experts Axiom Space. “This is a brand that loves history: we have an archive here in Milan, archives in Tuscany and products that have been kept throughout the decades,” he says. “A lot of what you see has elements that have been brought into the contemporary age but always with the same sensibility that has defined the history of Prada.”

Guerra’s CV is filled with high-profile leadership roles, including a decade-long stint as CEO of Italian eyewear manufacturer Luxottica Group, as well as two years heading the hospitality division of French luxury conglomerate LVMH. Since taking the helm at Prada in 2023, Guerra has overseen a period of commercial success. In the face of a luxury slowdown caused by geopolitical volatility in the Middle East and headwinds in key markets such as China, the group reported 22 consecutive quarters of growth in July and reported annual revenue of €5.7bn at the end of 2025. This equates to a 9 per cent year-on-year increase, supercharged by Prada’s sister brand Miu Miu, for which net sales soared by 35 per cent year on year. For context, Italy’s wider fashion and luxury sector had a year-on-year decline of 2.6 per cent at the beginning of 2026, according to data published by the Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana. Last December, Guerra also helped to complete the Prada Group’s acquisition of Italian fashion brand Versace, in a cash deal valued at €1.25bn.

Though Guerra’s recipe for success includes investing in vertical manufacturing across Italy, upgrading retail offerings and streamlining operations, he’s quick to point out that the key to the Prada Group’s achievements is Miuccia Prada. The septuagenarian, who took over the family business in 1978, now serves as the co-creative director, alongside Belgian designer Raf Simons. She’s also creative director of Miu Miu, which she launched in 1993. Celebrated for her intellectual approach to fashion and known in the industry as Mrs Prada, she has challenged the conventions of bourgeois taste, be it through peculiar colour palettes or off-kilter silhouettes.

Some of these ideas do not, on paper, sound conducive to commercial success. The Prada spring/summer 2027 women’s ready-to-wear collection, for example, revolved around a fixed parameter of the skirt (63 of them, to be exact). The season before that, 15 models each took to the runway four times, shedding layers with every new lap. Rather than showcasing 60 different looks, this format revealed the different stages of 15 outfits – a high-fashion striptease that began with thick coats, scarves and jumpers, and ended with bloomers and silk slips paired with knee-high socks. On the menswear side, the autumn/winter 2026 collection rejected the pristine image of traditional luxury by including deliberately rumpled and wrinkled clothes, with coffee stains on oversized shirt cuffs. During the annual Milan Design Week, rather than peddling homeware or chairs like other fashion brands, Prada hosts symposiums that explore topics such as image-making in the digital age and operational infrastructure. Meanwhile, Miu Miu stages a “literary club” to discuss the writings of Annie Ernaux, Ama Ata Aidoo and Fumiko Enchi.

It takes a certain type of CEO to trust that this eccentricity will translate to in-store sales. “If we didn’t take these risks, we would never be successful,” says Guerra, as we make our way up to the plush quarters reserved for “VICs” – the very important clients in the top one or two percentiles of shoppers, who are estimated to account for up to half of the luxury sector’s sales. “You need to be credible today,” he says. “Credible to the brand, to your clients, to your fans, credible to your haters as well.” Does Prada have haters? “Sure. There will always be people who say that the past was better, that the future looks worse.”

Prada spring/summer 2027 women’s ready-to-wear

The collection focuses on skirts, showcasing 63 in total.

Indeed, future-proofing the group’s legacy for the next generation is a challenge that was put to Guerra when he took over from Miuccia Prada and her husband, Patrizio Bertelli. The plan is to orchestrate a smooth family succession to the group’s heir apparent – the couple’s son Lorenzo. “There is never a simple generational evolution,” says Guerra. “And as Italians, it’s not in our hearts to plan for the future. The first year of this job was dominated by discussions and conversations. ‘What is this?’ ‘Why should we do it?’ ‘How should we do it?’ ‘What should we say?’ It’s classic Prada – we debate. It’s how we make decisions. Everyone has strong ideas but everybody listens because it’s this reasoning and pulling together of the small pieces that will see us evolve another 20 years.”

These boardroom meetings prove effective. The most recent edition of Milan Fashion Week cemented Prada’s status as one of the most beloved brands to come out of the Lombard capital. Switching up its usual Thursday show slot for an earlier one on Tuesday, Prada’s change in schedule encouraged buyers and press to fly in for the full duration of the week, rather than the final few days when major brands – notably Gucci, Bottega Veneta and Giorgio Armani – show in quick succession. A rave thrown at the brand’s cultural centre, the Fondazione Prada in the south of the city, attracted a crowd of thousands who stayed until the early hours of the morning under the strobe lights of a smoke-filled dancefloor. Making time for a pit stop at the Pradasphere was high on the back-to-back agenda of industry insiders. But perhaps most importantly, the skirt-centric spring/summer 2027 collection drew rapturous applause for its conceptual simplicity and expert execution.

As the dust settles following a period of fashion-industry musical chairs, with numerous creative directors and C-suite executives moving between houses, Prada remains steadfast. Though the current outlook is rosy, Guerra does not take it for granted. His focus is fixed on improving retail offerings and meeting the needs of top-tier clients, while drawing in a younger generation of shoppers. “This industry has gone through a negative cycle in the past three, four years,” he says. “We lost clients for a number of reasons. Maybe it was price inflation, maybe there were too many products. Now, we want to understand how we can dedicate more affordable collections, projects and ideas to new clients. We cover everything, from the very top tier, with private suites and tailoring services, to a younger, entry-level crowd.” What will always stay the same, says Guerra, is a desire to connect to a wider audience by going beyond fashion, through a cultural lens that encompasses everything from art and architecture to literature and space exploration – without these pursuits, Prada would lose its cerebral essence.

Before Monocle leaves, the final stop of our tour is the private, invitation-only apartment for VIP clients on the flagship’s top floor. Here, antique furniture and chairs are pushed up against walls in the kind of aristocratic set-up that you might find in European palaces. There’s also an industrial kitchen for chefs to prepare meals or assemble canapés for cocktail parties and even a bath should a client fancy a soak after a long day of shopping. “Everything here is put together by Mrs Prada, who is a true Milanese lady,” says Guerra. “This element of hospitality is very Italian, very simple, very Prada.” From this secluded perch, the lunette-shaped paintings of the different continents, set in the eaves of the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, look so close that you could touch them. Four storeys below us, under the glass dome, a circle forms at the epicentre of the arcade, where people patiently wait to improve their fortunes via a triple pirouette on the bull mosaic.
prada.com

Casa Cedo: A hidden design-led retreat behind a Porto flower shop

Tucked away in the heart of Porto lies an elegant flower shop that offers rather more than meets the eye. Behind an unassuming façade, amid vibrant carnations, anthuriums and hydrangeas, hides an intriguing reception. Here, guests check in to Casa Cedo, Porto’s neat new boutique hotel.

“We wanted to soften the edges and make sure that everybody arrives at the house with the same energy that we hope that they will be leaving with,” says co-owner Jeremiah Healy. “It was about creating a special atmosphere from the start. Guests arrive from the street through the botanical boutique, surrounded by flowers, and are given a glass of Portuguese wine. You can immediately see people relax.” From the moment that you step through a dark-blue door, it’s clear that this is no ordinary retail space. The florist’s shop is also an outlet for Swedish fragrance house Byredo.

Irish-Italian couple Healy and Massimiliano Salé have meticulously restored this 19th-century townhouse in the city’s Rua de Cedofeita – a busy high street lined with independent shops and restaurants that’s a stone’s throw from the Miguel Bombarda creative quarter. With only eight guest rooms, it’s an intimate affair that brings together design, hospitality and local crafts, while preserving much of the building’s original character. There’s a skylight, traditional tiles with pineapple motifs (it’s thought that the family who built the property had ties to Brazil), wood accents and native planting that typifies the green-fingered couple.

“It was important to be respectful of the old building,” says Salé. “We wanted to reuse as much as possible and work with what we have locally. Portugal is so rich in terms of resources, materials and talent – and we wanted to champion that.” Heritage roof tiles found during the renovation now adorn a cosy bar in the lounge; light fixtures in the rooms were custom-made by Porto-based ceramicist Ayala Braidman; and interior designer Daniela Franceschini of Quiet Studios created bespoke furniture alongside Portuguese carpenters. Personal touches can be found throughout, from the choice of books that line oak shelves to Salé’s own ceramic works and even a playlist that soundtracks the hotel.

A former outbuilding in the garden has been connected to the property and transformed into a dining room with high ceilings, wood beams and a glass structure that allows in warm light. Bread is baked on site each morning and a 15-seat table allows for lingering breakfast conversation. That’s is also the setting for evening meals, where local and international chefs are invited into Casa Cedo’s kitchen.

“We want to curate the experience for international guests but also bring together the creative and entrepreneurial local community,” says Healy. “That’s something very special.”
casacedo.com

The commute: Take to the skies with Finnair CEO Turkka Kuusisto

Turkka Kuusisto took the helm of Finnair in 2024 at a pivotal moment for the Finnish flag carrier. Facing the ongoing fallout from the closure of Russian airspace, which disrupted the airline’s lucrative long-haul connections between Europe and Asia, the former postal-service CEO has focused on rebuilding the airline to succeed in this new geopolitical reality. To see how he manages his company from the cabin, Monocle joins Kuusisto on his commute from Helsinki Airport in Vantaa to Milan for a leadership meeting.

What time does your alarm go off?
At about 07.00. Today my flight isn’t until 16.10, so there’s no need to get up earlier than usual.

What’s on your early-morning menu?
Breakfast has never been my strong suit but I’m trying to step up my game and have started making smoothies with bananas, blueberries, frozen strawberries, quark, milk and protein powder. They set me up for the long day ahead.

You arrive at the airport. What’s next?
When I go through security, I like to time how long it takes: usually between three and 10 minutes, depending on the time of the day. I know how important priority security is to business travellers. I occasionally visit our lounges to check how things are working but otherwise I go to Finnair’s crew café and meet our staff. These are valuable encounters for a CEO.

Window or aisle seat?
Window. I like seeing how the view from above is different in every city.

Do you travel light?
Yes. Hand luggage only but my gym gear is always in the bag.

Do you treat the plane as a mobile office or take the chance to snooze?
To me, it’s both. For example, I recently flew from Sydney to Singapore on a plane without wi-fi. It was the first time in about 10 years that I had seven hours straight without being connected to the rest of the world. Those seven hours were very valuable. It felt luxurious to watch movies and be by myself.

Do you read or listen to something?
It depends. I sometimes have to read work documents to prepare for the next day but I make sure to set aside some time for myself. I listen to audiobooks such as Welsh author Ken Follett’s fantastic works.

When you’re not wearing headphones, do you talk to fellow passengers?
I chat mostly with our staff. If I know someone on the flight, I speak to them and ask how their journey has gone. That’s when I’m in customer-service mode.

It’s touchdown at Milan Malpensa. How does the rest of your day look?
As soon as I land, I head to my hotel, put on my gym gear and work out. Later, other members of the leadership team will join me for an executive team meeting, during which we review our strategy and future direction.