Issues

Bedding down at Michelhaus, an Alpine hotel in an 800-year-old mountain town

Anyone seeking an authentically Helvetic home for the holidays this winter should consider swapping the grand hotels of Gstaad, Verbier and Zermatt for something less well-known. Set in the 800-year-old mountain town of Ernen in the canton of Valais, Michelhaus is a new property from Reto Holzer. The Zürich hair salon-owner purchased the three-storey building for himself in 2020 before opening it up to holidaymakers.

The chalet from 1686 was in dire need of renovation when Holzer bought it. Working with Valais architects and carpenters, he saved the original floors and the stone hearth that still boasts the coat of arms of the family who built the place. “The architects here are used to the complexities of renovating old chalets,” Holzer tells Monocle as he crosses the 350-year-old floorboards in a quilted Moncler jacket, his chocolate-brown poodle, Maxime, at his heels.

Once the bones of the building were safe, Holzer split the house into two apartments that can each sleep up to five people in plush Hästens beds. Antique milking stools, cowbells and paintings from brocantes contribute to the old-world decor, while Holzer also furnished the house with modern pieces including Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona daybed and Stella McCartney’s take on Mario Bellini’s Le Bambole sofa for B&B Italia. “This is a place for people looking for something rustic and cosy,” he says, opening the doors to the balcony. “I like the mix between old and new.” From our perch, we hear the tinkling bells of cows grazing in the field as Holzer points out the Finsteraarhorn, the highest peak of the Bernese Alps. “I like to come here because it’s quiet; life is slower.”

Ernen, a town of 550 people, is something of a time capsule. Until the Napoleonic era, this grassy patch of the Alps – less than a three-hour drive from Zürich and Geneva – was an important crossroad in the Mitteleuropean trade route. But the town’s importance waned when the Simplon and Grand St Bernard passes were built, improving cross-mountain travel.

Case in point: the unappetisingly named local dish of cholera. As we gather around the table for lunch, Holzer brings out the pie, filled with apple, potato, onion and raclette cheese — a hotchpotch of the limited resources that locals could access throughout the winters. Joining Monocle is the mayor, Francesco Walter – it’s a small town, remember – who has spearheaded Ernen’s music festival since 1998. “I have a passion for culture and saw the festival as an opportunity for tourism,” says Walter. “When I joined, it consisted of six concerts taking place over two weeks. Now we host more than 50 events a year.”

As a bottle of Swiss white is uncorked, conversation flows. Hunkered in Holzer’s chalet, the calm that might elude you in Gstaad, Verbier or Zermatt is as hard to ignore as the Alps out the window.
michelhaus.ch

From slick suits to coveted coats, here’s our selection of menswear to keep the cold at bay

MODEL: Ikken Yamamoto
GROOMING: Kenichi Yaguchi
PRODUCER: Shigeru Nakagawa
LOCATION: The Conran Shop Daikanyama

The festival, record factory and app showing the music industry a world beyond streaming

How to start a music festival
Pinkfish Music & Arts Festival
Malaysia

Before Kuala Lumpur-based entrepreneur Kesavan “KC” Purusotman co-founded Pinkfish with Rohit Rampal, his childhood friend and business partner, the duo had spent more than 15 years organising music events and concerts. “There was a demand for live music after the coronavirus restrictions were lifted so we decided to realise our dream of putting on a music festival,” says Purusotman.

The inaugural edition of the Pinkfish Music & Arts Festival in April 2023 featured international and regional headliners, from French producer DJ Snake to Malaysian rap star Joe Flizzow. In June 2024 the festival returned to the Sunway Lagoon theme park in Subang Jaya city, attracting some 15,000 attendees. “We wanted to focus on creating a unique atmosphere, one in which people could build a long-term relationship with the business and not just with the headline acts,” says Purusotman (pictured). “Music is the heart of every festival but it’s important to emphasise other elements too.” Purusotman also runs several satellite events under the Pinkfish umbrella, including Pinkfish Countdown on New Year’s Eve, indoor concerts and pop-up performances across Kuala Lumpur between its bigger calendar fixtures, from the Pinkfish Express (a party train featuring DJs playing in carriages) to artist sets in ice-cream shops.

The sense of community generated by these events is a crucial part of what makes the brand unique. “It’s what music is all about,” says Purusotman. “If you go to almost any other concert, you’ll probably sit down with a few friends to enjoy the show and then go home. But there are no fixed seats at a music festival, so it’s easier to meet new people.”

Large-scale events such as Pinkfish Music & Arts Festival are a boon for Malaysia’s tourism industry but strict government guidelines can make hosting them difficult. Earlier this year the Malaysian Islamic Party questioned why the Pinkfish Express event was allowed to take place on a state-owned train. Purusotman, however, believes that it’s possible to find common ground with the authorities. “There’s still a long way to go before we can realise our goals but the dialogue with officials is moving forward. I’m grateful for that.”
pinkfishfestival.com

The fairer music app
Even
New York

“I got lucky,” says Mag Rodriguez, reflecting on his 12-year career in the music industry. During his final year of high school, Rodriguez started managing a classmate who then broke onto the global rap scene. “We toured the world for six years,” he says.

When you meet Rodriguez in person, you get a sense of why he did so well as a manager: he’s easy to warm to. That magnanimous spirit is at the heart of his latest venture, Even. Most artists make little money from sharing their music on services such as Spotify. Even seeks to address the issue by offering music creators a “direct-to-fan” model. “With the major streamers, you can get access to almost every song ever created through subscriptions for about $12 [€10] a month,” he says. “But you can only split that fee in so many ways and the platform also has to take a cut.” On average, artists make about a third of a cent per stream.

Rodriguez says that Even isn’t seeking to replace the big streaming services. “I tell people to think of it like a cinema,” he says. “Artists release their album on the app seven to 30 days before it’s officially out everywhere else.” They can also encourage fans to buy their music by giving out rewards such as backstage passes.

Recently an artist making $700 (€630) per month from streaming earned $40,000 (€36,000) in 30 hours on Even. But Rodriguez (pictured) is equally excited by musicians who have gone from never making money from their work to earning their first $25 (€19).

Rodriguez is especially animated when he talks about the app’s community-building potential. Not long ago, he says, fans of one of Even’s artists planned to meet up before a gig. Tracking this through the app, the performer decided to make a surprise appearance. “Social media has created a false sense of how big fan bases are. But nothing beats realising that these are real people on the other side.”
even.biz

Making vinyl pay
Record Industry
Haarlem, Netherlands

Factory worker Jos van Wieren is carefully peeling a stamper negative from its “mother” disc when we meet him at Record Industry in Haarlem. The creation of stampers, which are used to press grooves into vinyl, is just one of the labour-intensive stages of making a record. “It’s like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” says the company’s chief commercial officer, Anouk Rijnders, striding through the 6,000 sq m warehouse.

Bubbling blue vats of solvent, sapphire and diamond cutting heads, and gleaming, direct metal mastering discs are all part of the process of turning PVC slabs (or “biscuits”) into records. From a special edition of Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon to the tunes of Dutch rock band The Vices, this factory presses as many as 10 million discs per year.

Despite dire warnings over the decades that CDs, MP3s, online piracy and, more recently, streaming services would spell doom for the vinyl format, Record Industry has kept the decks spinning. “I have been working here for almost 25 years and this is probably the fourth time I have seen vinyl making a comeback,” says Rijnders. “It never really goes away.”

Founded as Artone in 1958 and now run by husband-and-wife team Ton and Mieke Vermeulen, Record Industry is a place where historic machinery meets modern automation. As an artist manager and record-label owner, Ton was a long-term client of the press before 1998, when Sony Music decided to sell it. He admits that he had concerns about the future of the business when he bought the factory. “It felt as though a new record plant was closing  every month because of the decline in vinyl’s popularity at the time,” he says.

Record Industry’s status as a family enterprise and its commercial flexibility have been crucial to its survival. It can press about 40,000 discs a day, in as many as 20 different colours (or a mixture of them), and make records using plant-based bioplastics. The building is also equipped with a direct-to-disc recording studio, which regularly attracts musicians. It’s an elaborately furnished space, containing everything from Rijnders’ grandmother’s rug to hi-tech cutting equipment.

Mieke, who serves as Record Industry’s chief financial officer, says that the height of the coronavirus pandemic was a boom time for the company. “There were no festivals or concerts but people who liked music still wanted to spend their money on it,” she says. “A lot of people started cleaning up their house, starting with the attic, and found their record players. Putting on a record is not just listening to music; it’s quality time for yourself. If you listen to music on streaming services, you can go for hours without doing anything. But if you play a record, you have to stand up and turn it over. It’s mindful.”

Though demand has dipped since then, many continue to buy records to support their favourite artists. Staff members also point out that, though vinyl is a form of plastic, it is far from a throwaway item. “We’ve made our production process as sustainable as possible,” says Ton. “Our electricity is solar- or wind-powered and the gas that we use for our boilers is co2 compensated. Plus, the cardboard used for packaging is fsc-controlled.” For the team at Record Industry, the business is as much about sharing an enthusiasm for the format as it is the bottom line. “It’s something to hold, admire and be proud of,” says Rijnders.
recordindustry.com

As geopolitical tensions rise, how free is the sky?

In his book Skyfaring, Belgian-American writer and pilot Mark Vanhoenacker notes that while aviation is “commonly associated with the levelling of difference, with the bulldozing of borders between places and times and languages”, it has also “resulted in the creation of new realms of geography”. The “administrative divisions of airspace” are not the traditional global demarcations that we might recognise. Rather, writes Vanhoe­nacker, they are “sky countries” – regions governed by air-traffic-control authorities, with borders and histories of their own, even ranging beyond terrestrial boundaries into “oceanic airspace”.

Japan, for instance, is known to pilots as “Fukuoka”, while the zone dubbed “Salt Lake City” actually covers parts of nine US states. The country with the largest airspace in the world, Australia, is not the nation with the largest landmass (which is Russia). This is because Airservices Australia oversees air-traffic control not only for the sovereign nation but the “flight-information regions” of the Solomon Islands and Nauru, a vast swath of territory comprising about 11 per cent of the world’s total airspace.

While the sky might symbolise freedom, there’s little about it that’s free in a monetary or legal sense. Piloting through a country’s airspace means incurring overflight fees. Travelling above “flyover country” in the US, for example, will set you back $61.75 (€57) for every 100 nautical miles. Fees are typically charged to pay for the provision of air-traffic control. The steep cost of crossing the Trans-Siberian route, however, has been used to subsidise Aeroflot, Russia’s flag carrier.

Most airlines have paid these fees for the convenience of reducing travel times and distance – as well as saving fuel costs. In 2021, US carriers petitioned the State Department to help them to expand their ability to fly through Russian airspace, warning that without this, “US airlines will be forced to operate on alternate, inefficient routes, resulting in time penalties, technical stops, excess co2 emissions and loss of historic slot rights.”

Not long afterwards, Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. When the EU, US and Canada blocked all Russian aircraft from their borders, Moscow retaliated in kind, banning any flights over its territory. The “sky countries” were brought crashing down by events on the ground.

One of the companies most directly affected was Finnair, which had staked a big slate of its business on Finland’s proximity, via Russia, to Asia. One Saturday evening in late February 2022, Päivyt Tallqvist, the company’s senior vice-president of communications, heard that the EU was planning to close its airspace to Russian planes. “We knew that Russia would retaliate,” she tells Monocle. Finnair immediately cancelled flights that were due to depart the following day. “We didn’t want to be in a situation where we would send customers, crew and aircraft to an airspace that might close at any moment.”

The airline’s route-planning and operations teams set to work on getting its Asian service back up and running, with Tokyo and Seoul as its first priorities. The Russian disruption was so huge that planners could no longer rely on software alone. Finnair scrambled to dust off a route that was a stalwart during the Cold War. The polar transverse, with fuelling stops in places such as Anchorage, was common when the skies over the Soviet Union were largely off limits to Western aircraft (save for direct flights to Moscow). Finnair was a pioneer in this respect; in 1983 it began offering the first non-stop flights from Europe to Tokyo, with special planes carrying extra fuel tanks.

In the late 1980s, in the wake of glasnost, the USSR started reopening its skies and the polar route became less common. But now that it was essential again, planning was required, says Finnair’s vice-president of network management, Perttu Jolma. Diversionary airports in northern Japan or Canada had to be examined, for instance, to ensure that they could accommodate an Airbus a350. Planes’ extended-range twin-engine operational performance standards (ETOPS) were tweaked to boost the time that they could fly on one engine, allowing them to reach airports that were further away. Polar survival kits had to be added to aircraft.

But the polar route doesn’t always make the most sense. Given the favourable tailwinds running west to east, says Jolma, Finnair also takes a southern route, more or less equidistant to the polar route, to destinations such as Tokyo. For example, Finnair AY73 from Helsinki to Narita flies due south from the Finnish capital, hooking a left near Kosice, Slovakia, skirting Ukraine, passing over the Black Sea, then beelining through Central Asia – over countries deemed safe but where conflicts are not unknown. Returning flights tend to take the polar route but nothing is guaranteed. Even space weather events, such as a burst of radiation, can influence whether a plane will fly the polar route. “It affects the aircraft equipment, which can limit how far north you fly,” says Jolma.

Finnair’s Asia flights, like those of every European airline, now take more time, burn more fuel and require more crew than in recent years. There are other ripple effects too. Previously, says Jolma, Finnair could fly from Helsinki to Tokyo and back in a day. But because of today’s longer journeys, if the plane were to turn back straight after reaching its destination, it would arrive in Helsinki at an inconvenient hour for onward connections. So it now spends more time on the ground in Japan. As a result of such constraints, a number of routes, such as Beijing and Sapporo, no longer make sense financially or logistically.

Of course, it isn’t just Finnair that has had to contend with the closure of Russian airspace. A 2024 paper in the Journal of Air Transport Management estimates that the Russian and Ukrainian airspace closures resulted in some 6 per cent of global flights being hit with a cost increase of 13 per cent. And while the Russian closure is the largest impediment to global air travel, it is by no means the only patch of sky that has been affected by geopolitics on the ground.

Whether it’s legal to fly over an area is one question; whether it’s safe to do so is another. This was brought into tragic relief in 2014 by the downing of Malaysian Air flight 17 (MH17) over eastern Ukraine by Russian-backed separatists using a BUK surface-to-air missile system. “That was the moment when a lot of operations changed,” Eric Shouten, a former Dutch intelligence officer and the CEO of security consultants Dynami, tells Monocle. “MH17 opened the eyes of many countries and airlines and made them reconsider flying over a conflict zone. Before that, it was still normal to fly high and dry over it – you could look down and see the impacts but you were never the target.” The emergence of Man-Portable Air Defence Systems (MANPADS) meant that even non-state actors could down civilian aircraft.

Mark Zee is a former pilot who now runs Opsgroup, a membership-based organisation for “people at the pointy end of international flight operations”, whose founding was inspired by the downing of MH17. “After that incident, it became clear that a handful of airlines had been avoiding Ukraine,” he says. “The question was, if these people knew about the risk in Ukraine, why didn’t everybody know?” The answer, he says, is that there was no easy way to share the information; nor, he says, is there a single global authority making the call on whether it is permissible or even advisable to fly in a certain airspace.

“There isn’t a clear edict to say that this is the responsibility of the ICAO [the International Civil Aviation Organisation], the IATA [the International Air Transport Association] or a national government,” says Zee. “It’s complex and there isn’t a great precedent for it.” One country might deem another to be off-limits, while another might regularly use it to route flights.

So he set out to create a one-stop clearinghouse for information, drawing on a network of people in aviation and government, as well as official “Notams” (notice to air missions) and “SFARS” (special federal aviation regulations). The group’s Conflict Zone and Risk Database is a colour-coded map of the world’s hot spots, grouped into three levels of risk. Among the countries that are currently coded red (“Do not fly”) are Sudan, where a militia shot down a foreign-registered cargo aircraft in October, and Yemen, which “remains an active conflict zone” and “should be avoided”.

The map is constantly changing, says Zee. Events such as the recent series of Iranian missile attacks on Israel and the subsequent retaliation change the state of play. “Now we’re in a very topical conversation about what airspace risk looks like. What does it mean for civilian aircraft to fly close to war zones? How far away is far enough?”

Three trailblazing photography dealers in LA, Hong Kong and Amsterdam

Gallery 01
The West Coast pioneer
Webber 939, Los Angeles

After more than 20 years of running photographic and creative agency Webber Represents, as well as a London gallery, Chantal Webber (pictured) moved to Los Angeles in 2019, just as the city’s art scene was luring galleries from across the world. “The creative energy reminds me of New York in the 1990s,” she says from her east-side space. “But for a city steeped in photographic history, there aren’t many photo-led galleries.”

Webber’s gallery, which opened in 2023, has made its mark by spotlighting future greats such as Daniel Shea and dusting off long-unseen works including those by feminist photo legend Tee A Corinne. Performance, film and ephemera are often integrated into shows and the gallery also has a public reading library, lined with photography books.

Enticing some LA collectors out to the grittier east side and asking them to take the leap into buying photography is a “work in progress”, says Webber. “It’s important for us to take risks with what we show. For a younger, contemporary collector, we’re at the right price point.”
webberrepresents.com

Gallery 02
The local hero
Blue Lotus Gallery, Hong Kong

In 2007 ship-broker Sarah Greene opened Blue Lotus Gallery in an industrial building in Hong Kong. It was a side project: Greene, who hails from Belgium, tells monocle that she was more interested in creating a space where emerging artists could showcase their work than in “sales or making money”. In 2012, she narrowed the gallery’s scope to photography – especially work that took Hong Kong’s identity as its theme. “I’m happy that I found a special corner focusing on photography and crafting a unique programme,” says Greene. “A lot of the artists who we represent will be very difficult to find elsewhere.”

Blue Lotus now occupies a street-level shopfront in Sheung Wan. Its roster includes the late street photographer Fan Ho and Hong Kong-based French artist Romain Jacquet-Lagreze. Greene is now expanding her remit across Asia, where young photographers often struggle to find galleries that will champion their work. Blue Lotus was an early exhibitor of Japan’s Yasuhiro Ogawa and Greene is excited to build a list of the best practitioners from across Asia. “There’s still a lot of talent that needs to be shown.”
bluelotus-gallery.com

Gallery 03
The talent spotters
Homecoming, Amsterdam

Founders Nadine van Asbeck and Karlijn Bozon (pictured, on right, with Van Asbeck) describe Homecoming Gallery as “a space to discover rising stars in photography, ahead of the curve”. And now, having previously popped up in spaces around the world and online over the past four years, their gallery has a permanent home.

When monocle visits the central Amsterdam space, there are works on show by US artist Mia Weiner, who makes hand-weavings based on intimate photos. Kunstmuseum Den Haag modern art gallery has already snapped one up. In the back room, we find vibrant abstract prints by Dutch-German photographer Johnny Mae Hauser.

The aim of Van Asbeck and Bozon, who met while working in fashion, is to present photography-focused work that doesn’t usually make it into traditional galleries. “We started this space because we felt that a lot of galleries were very focused on the same art schools,” says Bozon. “A whole generation of artists was being overlooked.”

The duo are particularly focused on promoting female artists and hope to appeal to new audiences. “We wanted to show a little bit more of the person behind the art,” says Bozon. “We are drawn to work that ignites something in you. There needs to be a personal bond.”
homecoming.gallery

Art collecting in an age of artificial intelligence

Photographers can use AI to enhance their creativity rather than eliminate it but new perspectives are needed to assess the art form in the digital age, writes Nina Roehrs.

Photographers have always adapted to new technologies, whether that’s picking up digital cameras or the use of artificial intelligence (AI). Some argue that AI goes further than previous advances, reducing the need for human input in a way that threatens the essence of photography itself. Others believe it simply shifts the photographer’s role from image-taker to image-maker, blurring the lines between creation and curation.

There are many ways to create a work of art, with varying degrees of assistance from others, including machines and algorithms. The true test, however, lies in demonstrating the uniqueness of one’s ideas, style and originality, and finding the delicate balance between concept and visual expression. Take Albertine Meunier’s HyperChips. The series has a distinctive visual language and humorously illustrates an ever-shifting AI output despite using the same prompt: “Albertine Meunier is eating sausages and chips.”

When we look at AI art, we should be asking ourselves the following questions. Does AI serve as an assistant or a creator? How much human touch has been retained? Has the interplay between man and machine led to exceptional results? Inevitably, assessing quality in this digital context requires a nuanced understanding of the technologies involved, which will demand new skills and perspectives from curators, collectors, critics and viewers alike.

AI in photography represents both continuity and change. And those who are highly skilled in navigating and exploiting these technologies have a distinct advantage. AI might not represent as radical a departure as it first appears – at least not for artists who know how to leave a lasting impression.

Roehrs is a specialist in art in the digital age and the curator of the Digital Sector at Paris Photo.

A striking new restaurant in Aspen and Lisbon’s museum revival

Renovation: Lisbon
Open arms

Following a eight-year hiatus, Lisbon’s Museu do Design (MUDE) has finally reopened. The update has created space for a new long-term exhibition that displays more than 500 design and fashion pieces by Portuguese and international creatives. The renovation work, led by Bárbara Coutinho, director of MUDE, and Luis Miguel Saraiva, architect of the Lisbon City Council, focused on stabilising the eight-storey, 18th-century edifice. Critical anti-seismic reinforcements have allowed for existing materials such as brick, concrete and stone to be left exposed in a nod to the various renovation works that have taken place during the building’s 300-year history. The revitalised exhibition galleries occupy four floors and have no partitions, creating open spaces that can adapt to suit the needs of temporary shows.

Perhaps the most significant change, however, is that this former headquarters of Banco Nacional Ultramarino (a financial institution with ties to Portugal’s 20th-century national dictatorship) is now fully open to the public for the first time in its history. Previously hidden spaces and floors – including a dedicated design library, which has been expanded over the past 10 years and is furnished with Portuguese-made wooden furniture – now welcome alfacinhas (people from Lisbon) and foreign visitors alike. “In the past the building was a closed, hierarchical and segregated space,” says Coutinho. “Now it has been transformed into an open, democratic and participative place.”
mude.pt

Interiors: USA
Holding sway

Looking for an unexpected spot for dinner before your après-ski moment? The US resort town of Aspen might just have the answer, in the form of a new Thai-fusion restaurant. The blend of influences, however, is more in the design of the space than its cuisine (which is straight-up modern Thai). Sway Aspen’s inviting interiors are the handiwork of the Texas-based Michael Hsu Office of Architecture (MHOA), which previously worked on Sway’s flagship restaurant in the state capital, Austin. The design takes its cues both from Thailand’s decorative traditions and from the aesthetics of the Rocky mountains, with plenty of teak fittings, gentle lighting and plush banquettes. It’s an ideal setting to sample the restaurant’s dinner and après menus, not to mention its fantastic cocktails.

The interiors use warm materials and tones: think brass details, leather seats, clay plaster and lamps made from Thai mulberry paper. “It’s a carefully designed space but not too precious,” says MHOA founder Michael Hsu. “It’s intimate and the type of place you want to gather and relax with friends for a great meal after a day on the slopes.” Come winter, we’re sure that this new addition to Aspen will sway many.
aspen.swaythai.com; hsuoffice.com

Why Italian furniture giant Cassina encourages disagreement

“If you want to do this job properly, then you really need to love the product,” says Luca Fuso. “Otherwise, there are so many other roles you can do.” Fuso, the CEO of Italian furniture giant Cassina, welcomes monocle to the company’s headquarters in Meda, a 30-minute drive from Milan, where the firm has been based since 1927. Some of the oldest buildings here date back to the 1940s and received a makeover from Cassina’s art director Patricia Urquiola in 2017.

Seemingly in constant motion, Fuso glides around the near century-old campus. He meets colleagues over lunch in the canteen and talks to clients in a meeting room before coming to rest with key members of his team in an enclosed courtyard at the centre of the property. The space has a verdant green wall and is furnished with pieces from a variety of collections in the Cassina catalogue. “It reflects a new philosophy that we call the ‘Cassina perspective’, which involves combining our latest designs with classic products that we have been making for a long time, such as those designed by Gio Ponti,” says Fuso. “This creates a unique environment that reflects what people do in their own homes. You don’t just have work from one designer.”

The outlook, Fuso says, informs the development of Cassina’s collection (“We’re able to work out what’s missing from a room”) and he credits Urquiola for playing a significant role in developing it. “She’s not only an incredible designer but a great mind,” he says. And while the Spanish art director is essential to his work, Fuso holds the rest of his team in similarly high esteem. “I try to surround myself with the most skilled people possible, so I know that they’re able to do what they’re supposed to do without my support.”

It begs the question, is there a danger to having staff who are strong-willed, opinionated and don’t seem to need their boss? “I hope that every time I say something, somebody raises their hand and says, ‘No, I don’t agree’, because that starts a conversation to take better action.” And, ultimately, it seems, to make products that Fuso loves. — L

Luca Fuso, (far left)
CEO, Cassina

“I had been a customer of Cassina for many years before joining,” says Fuso, who was hired as CEO in 2018. “It’s the reason why I came here.” The Italian businessman – who is also CEO of Zanotta, which Cassina acquired in 2023 – has worked in fashion, furniture and automotive, holding executive roles at the likes of Diesel, b&b Italia and Ferrari. For his day-to-day work, however, he draws inspiration from sport. “You have to make sure that the company works in order to manufacture, deliver, sell and repeat,” he says. “It’s like tennis: hit and repeat.”

1. Patricia Urquiola
Art director
“Plays a key role in shaping Cassina’s visual identity and ensuring that every aesthetic and creative aspect reflects the brand’s values.”

2. Alberto Mandelli
Research and development director
“Gives shape and life to the products, playing an important role in research and development.”

3. Maurizio Fusetti
Chief financial officer
“Manages the company’s financial resources, planning and financial control.”

4. Stefania Sgattoni
Head of legal affairs
“Looks after legal and regulatory matters.”

5. Enrico Raggi
Commercial director
“Leads the wholesale channel’s growth strategy and sales management.”

6. Chiara Gazzola
Sewing department manager
“Manages operations related to the cutting of leather and fabrics.”

7. Louis Cirillo
Upholstery department manager
“Guides the production of upholstered products.”

8. Camilla Dichio
Sewing department manager
“Oversees the sewing process used in the production of the collections.”

9. Mario Apollonio
Operations director
“Oversees the supply chain as well as manufacturing, quality and logistics to ensure high standards across the board.”

10. Beatrice Gobbi
Product manager
“Helps guide product strategy, development, and market positioning to ensure customer satisfaction.”

11. Christian Medulla
Head of HR
“Leads talent acquisition and development, as well as organisational culture, to ensure that everything aligns with our brand values.”

12. Emanuela Malatacca
Executive assistant
“Supports the CEO by managing schedules and co-ordinating meetings to ensure efficient operations.”

13. Lorenzo Penuti
Custom interiors director
“Leads project management, client relations and custom design co-ordination.”

14. Sara Geti
Global retail director
“Drives Cassina’s worldwide sales strategies to ensure a high-quality experience for all of our customers.”

15. Sara Nosrati
Head of communications
“Manages press relations and fosters the luxury furniture brand’s reputation.”

16. Andrea Bocchiola
Marketing director
“Develops brand strategies and manages product development, as well as social media and advertisement campaigns.”

Interview: Danish fashion brand No Nationality 07’s has global aspirations

Anders Rahr has been the CEO of Copenhagen-based menswear brand No Nationality 07 (NN.07) since 2021. The fast-growing label is known for its modern-casual pieces, which include chore jackets, overshirts and relaxed, tailored trousers. You might recognise its signature brown-and-navy checked jackets, favoured by The Bear actor Jeremy Allen White. Since its television cameo, though, the brand has kept up the momentum by expanding its range and investing in physical retail. Working with Dutch design studio Contrair Collective, NN.07 has opened new shops in New York and London this year. Monocle meets Rahr to discuss the brand’s international ambitions.

Why was physical retail such a priority for you this year?
Offline retail has always played an important role in brand-building. Consumers are periodically swayed more towards online and then back towards the physical retail experience, so we believe in building a complete distribution model. NN.07 consumers usually work in the city and we already had communities in New York and London, so [opening shops in those cities] was only natural. We want to show the brand in its own environment.

Is there a common thread between NN.07 customers around the world?
They want to embody a style that is modern-casual, to wear something to work and then throughout the day. There’s an element of daily commuting too that influences the way that we design our clothes to be functional. We’re not a hype brand. We are design and quality-oriented rather than fashion-oriented.

And what’s next?
Five- or 10-year plans don’t work any more. Consumer behaviour is changing all the time. We try to have a vision about where we want to go and how we want to get there but you also need agility in business. [We aim for] sustainable growth but we also have ambition. It’s risky to go into retail in cities such as London or New York – but if there’s no risk, there’s no reward. These won’t be the last NN.07 shops you see either.
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Interview: A peace mediation adviser on how to resolve conflict

Senior peace mediation adviser Luxshi Vimalarajah, who has spent years as a practitioner worldwide, from Myanmar to the Basque Country, here sheds light on the minuscule details that need to be taken into consideration when bringing opposing sides to the table.

Many people dream of being astronauts or musicians. How did you get into mediation?
It has a lot to do with my childhood. I grew up partly in Sri Lanka when the civil war between the state and Liberation Tigers of Tamil was in full force. Thousands were displaced and fled the country during that time. Negotiations took place periodically but they were seen as a war by other means: it was all about defeating the other side at the table or a tactical move to gain more time. I grew up watching these negotiations, which were a failure. Both sides were insisting on these maximalist goals and were unwilling to negotiate in good faith. There was also deep mistrust and huge asymmetry between the parties. The Sri Lankan state had access to the international community, to resources and to power. The other side didn’t. How can you resolve a deep-rooted conflict like that? How can you help the parties to make the shift from violent politics to non-violent? So those two questions were key for me and led me to study political science and then specialise in peace mediation. The Sri Lanka conflict helped me to understand the tool of mediation and what assets a third party brings, as a go-between and an honest broker. The third party helps to level the playing field and find common ground.

It must be so hard remaining impartial or neutral given that it is part of human nature to form opinions. How do you do it and foster that skill?
As a mediator, you are expected to be impartial: free from bias and treating all conflicting parties in an even-handed and fair manner. You are equidistant between the parties. You don’t have any stakes in the outcome of the agreement or the negotiations, and you try to provide the space for both parties to negotiate an amicable outcome. Nowadays we insist that we are not neutral third parties; we also bring our ethics, our values and how we see the world into a process. And so it’s not whatever the parties want; there are clear limitations. Some parties enter a mediation process thinking that they can negotiate blanket amnesties for the crimes committed during the war. They sometimes even make it a precondition. However, we are bound by international humanitarian law and UN mediation guidelines that prohibit amnesties for gross human rights violations and crimes against humanity. We try to be as impartial as possible but it’s not always easy. There are moments when it might be better to step out of the process and bring another third party in.

What makes a good mediator?
Sometimes parties want to have a more authoritative mediator who tells them how to manage a conflict. But in other cases, parties just want to have a space where they can explore options and be provided with ideas. For instance, [Finland’s former president] Martti Ahtisaari in the Aceh process [in Indonesia] was seen as a very authoritative figure. He structured the process and provided the space but he also made it clear from the outset that a separate state for the gam militants was off the table. You might have question marks about such an approach but sometimes parties do prefer to have that.

Are there golden rules?
Never seek to embarrass your adversary. You have to create a situation where none of the parties really lose face, particularly in an Asian or African context. It is so important that you set a framework that allows parties to retain their dignity. The golden rule in our field, just like in others, is to treat others as you would like to be treated yourself. So this obviously encompasses respect, fairness and engaging in negotiations in good faith. These are the golden rules that I always apply in mediation processes. Elsewhere, an approach that really helps parties to see how they can make this shift is called the Harvard Principled Negotiation. These are all about moving from positions to interests. It’s not about what you want. Usually parties are stuck with: I want independence; I want a unitary state; I want this and that. But these principles dig a bit deeper and ask the questions of why they need it. This shift from what to why is quite important. Interests lie below positions and that’s a way in which you can accompany the parties to see not just their own interests but also the ones on the other side.

This could lead to agreement through compromise?
Compromise is not a term I use. We tend to think that if parties are in conflict, they have to find a compromise. Both sides will probably not be satisfied but they have to somehow meet in the middle, right? But this isn’t something that I propagate, because neither side gets what it wants. It is a lose-lose situation. There are many ways to deal with conflict and the more prominent one is one side gets what it wants and the other doesn’t – a win-lose paradigm. But what we try to do is to find a way in which both sides may get what they want.

It is hard and it also takes a lot of time to understand how we can find a mutually agreeable solution based on these underlying interests. Do you know the story about a fight over an orange between siblings at home? There’s just one orange left and both children want it. What would a mother normally do? Cut the orange in half and give each child an equal share. That feels fair as it’s half and half. So that’s the classic compromise situation. But both children end up unhappy. And they begrudgingly accept the solution. But what could have made the situation better, do you think?

Tough one. What about giving one child an orange today and the other child another tomorrow?
It’s actually very simple. The mother should have asked why they wanted the orange. We usually assume that both want to eat the orange and so we cut the orange in half. But if she had asked the children, she could have made a better decision. Because it turned out that one wanted the orange to make juice and the other one needed the zest to bake a cake. And both would have got what they really wanted if the mother had asked the right question. 

You must have to be fastidiously aware of every tiny detail when bringing opposing sides together.
Tiny details matter a lot. When you come into a process and the parties have not met you but might have heard a lot, the perceived weaker side always assumes that you will most probably privilege the stronger party, which is usually the state. Without even knowing how you conduct the process, they always assume that you are biased towards the state. And so these assumptions drive the way they behave at the table. The first two or three rounds are always a testing phase. Who does she shake hands with first? Is it the state or us? How does she sit? Does she frown when we speak or just when the other side speaks? Why is she shaking her head? Every minor, non-verbal expression from your side is observed. My formal sessions always start with an informal moment, checking all these details, from seating plans to how I’m going to address them. Do they have a preference to speak first, or can we let the other side speak? So it’s a major drama. One process I was involved with almost broke down because we hadn’t checked all these details. It’s exhausting but I always say that preparation is everything. My rule of thumb is: if you have a two-day session, you need to take four days to prepare for that.

I see you are currently involved in ‘discreet’ mediation in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. Can you shed more light on these processes?
I mean, they’re discreet, so I can’t say anything! Perhaps the most successful mediation processes are those we don’t get to really hear about, because they happen long before any conflict breaks out. We know mediation as a tool to resolve conflict but we hardly pay any attention to its preventive function. It’s not widely covered but it is powerful to really prevent the outbreak of conflict and violence in the first place. A lot of mediation happens behind the scenes and when parties are ready to explore other options, because they know that if they don’t, they’ll end up in a violent conflict.

Do you have a most memorable moment from your time in the field?
One was in 2008 when members of the Basque movement approached the Berghof Foundation and asked whether we could assist eta [an armed separatist group] and the wider Basque movement to transition away from violent politics. eta was banned in those days as a proscribed terrorist organisation, yet it was willing to consider laying down arms – but only in a dignified way. It wanted to have a negotiation process and a plan for demobilisation. The Spanish state insisted that if eta wanted to demobilise, it should lay down arms, and it resisted negotiating with eta. For us, it was a very unusual process accompanying an armed movement but it was an important one, because we were fearing what would happen to the weapons, to the people in exile and on the run, to the active militants and the wider Basque community. How could we encourage more inclusive processes so that the Basque community itself was involved in such a transition and not simply a bystander? How could we prevent further radicalisation and polarisation in a situation where there was no negotiation process with the Spanish state? Over two years, I was engaged in a quiet process with several sections of the Basque movement, facilitating their internal strategy-building process. I brought them together with movements that have undergone a transition process successfully – such as Sinn Féin and South Africa’s African National Congress – to learn from them. We gave negotiation training to the Basque political arm known as Abertzale Left, and helped to provide options for the inclusion of civil society in the peace process. We were involved behind the scenes throughout the whole process, from the initial cessation of hostilities to eta’s eventual demobilisation.

How do you convince two people who don’t want to be in a room together to actually sit down in a room together?
I’m always asked this question these days in relation to Ukraine and Russia. I always say that mediation is a voluntary process. It’s also not a silver bullet. We have to have certain conditions in place for it to work. One of those is a willingness from both sides to settle the conflict and the realisation that continuing the struggle will be more costly than ending the conflict. There often needs to be what we call the mutually hurting stalemate: a situation where neither side can really win the conflict, leading to a situation of lose-lose. Only when parties see that – and want to have a different way of engaging with each other – is the time right for mediation.

Your orange story earlier makes me think about mediation in a domestic setting. What are the lessons that we can apply to avoid arguing with our partners or children this Christmas?
Mediation is all about communication. It’s important to ask the right questions and not jump to assumptions. Avoid “yes” or “no” questions and leading ones such as: “Do you think he was right when he said X or Y?” That puts people off. Instead, be curious and try to understand the other person. So, “Can you tell me more about what triggered this reaction of yours?” Dig deeper, put yourself in the shoes of the other person and try to understand what makes them uncomfortable. My second point is the need to listen actively. We don’t listen and instead are constantly thinking about what we are going to say next while our counterpart is talking. This means we don’t pay attention to what he or she says and that can be detrimental. You have to seek understanding before being understood. So listen attentively and actively to the other side before you start to talk yourself.

Do you find yourself using professional mediation skills that you’ve acquired during your career with your own family? Or do you sometimes throw that orange against the wall?
I recently had a conversation with a friend of mine. I was telling her that all my knowledge about mediation doesn’t work in this context. You also have limitations, particularly when you are a conflict party. You can end up resorting to the sorts of tactics that a conflict party uses in such a situation. So, it’s sometimes difficult to restrain. And then you have to reflect. It’s not easy but you can also learn that way. When I teach mediation to my diplomat students, I always tell them that they can go and practise in their personal life, because we’re constantly negotiating with our children, with ourselves, with our employers or employees. When we use mediation very consciously, it really helps to have a better relationship with the people around us.