Issues

‘Think globally but act locally’: Gildo Zegna on his plans for the growing luxury conglomerate

Zegna might have production centres spanning Parma to Mendrisio in Switzerland but its spiritual home is in the Biella Alps in Piedmont, northern Italy. Known as Oasi Zegna, the site includes a vast nature park and the fashion house’s original wool mill, established in 1910 and still spinning yarn today. This is where the founder’s grandson, Gildo Zegna, meets Monocle to discuss succession at the fast-growing Zegna Group, which now includes US label Thom Browne and the fashion division of Tom Ford, alongside the Zegna label, which has evolved into one of the most prominent players in global luxury menswear.

Gildo, who recently moved on from the role of group CEO to become executive chairman, says that the switch is his way of “stepping up” as he seeks to ensure that the group stays nimble and competitive. Part of this involves developing the retail and customer experience through initiatives such as Salotto Zegna (exclusive shopping areas for one-to-one experiences) and the travelling, club-like Villa Zegna concept (extended events providing an immersive, “multisensory exploration” of the brand). The latter has touched down in cities from Miami to Shanghai. With revenues of €1.92bn in 2025, spearheaded by brand leader Zegna, the group now seems to be focusing on helping Thom Browne and Tom Ford to replicate some of the recent successes of their Italian stablemate. The 70-year-old Gildo, a keen skier and tennis player who personally tries on Zegna products before launch, is showing no sign of slowing down.

What’s your outlook on the luxury fashion industry, which is becoming increasingly competitive?
I’m not worried because we have a great team. My two boys [Edoardo and Angelo, now co-CEOs of the Zegna label] are very creative and have a firm grasp of how the world is changing. And our new group CEO, Gianluca Tagliabue, is a smart fellow. He’s very experienced and able to manage both the bad and the good with serenity. Zegna’s artistic director, Alessandro Sartori, is unique too. He understands the process from sheep to shop. With this set-up, we have to learn to say “no” more.

What does that mean?
We need to have priorities. Our competitive advantage since the coronavirus pandemic has been in our focus and understanding of who our customers are. We have been raising the bar and picking projects that will impress them. Pouring our efforts into service, marketing and the final product has been very important. The challenge is to be consistent: it’s relatively easy to put on a Villa Zegna event in Milan or in Oasi Zegna. But we want to achieve the same level of perfection overseas.

Does that mean you’re planning more events around the world?
There’s only one Lanificio Zegna [the house’s wool mill] and there is only one Oasi Zegna – so the key is to start from the origin. But, yes, the plan is to organise at least two major events a year. In 2025 we had some in Milan but also in Dubai, where we did a fashion show and a Villa Zegna event. The world is big enough for us to do each one differently, respecting local cultures. That’s the new mindset: think globally but act locally.

Do you see the Middle East as a big growth area?
For the Zegna brand, the Gulf represented 3 per cent of turnover pre-coronavirus and today it’s almost 10 per cent, which is incredible. I don’t know where I’ll be in five years but I’m sure that the trend will still be moving in that direction, with Saudi Arabia providing the biggest growth. We can still achieve higher productivity in the Emirates for Zegna. What we have done is remarkable. Dubai Mall is now our biggest shop in the world, surpassing our New York flagship.

You mentioned your sons’ new roles. How has it been to step away from your position as group CEO and become executive chairman?
Succession planning is very important. I promised the board that I would come up with a plan when I turned 70. I thought that it was important to take this step while I’m still mentally young and physically active. The new leadership will come to me with requests and ideas, and will want my support. But it will be different to making any direct interventions. I will go through them and it will be up to them to decide what to do. That will give me more time to focus on other things. But forget about having free time – these first few months have shown I’ll be very busy because there’s plenty to do.

You remain very much involved in the group’s day-to-day operations. Do you still want to be at the heart of things?
Yes, I want to be informed. Then I can decide how to use the information. And I want to be involved in the product. I was the first person to inspect the spring/summer 2027 pre-collection and I gave my advice. That’s what I like doing and I’m good at it. One important detail: the board decided that I remain in charge of the textile platform, which is strategic for our group. I want to achieve a better integration in textiles for Thom Browne and Tom Ford.

What was your takeaway from 2025?
Considering all of the geopolitical misfortunes, I think that we did well – and Zegna did especially well, considering that China is not at the level that it used to be. If that market turns around, we will see even better numbers. Having made cuts in our wholesale distribution, we now need to master retail. Plus, we have to develop a stronger business for Thom Browne and Tom Ford in Europe and Asia.

Given the fast-changing world, what role does innovation play for the group?
It has to be part of your mindset. I wake up at 04.00 with new ideas. Sartori is the same. We meet in the morning and ask, “Is this bullshit or is this something that could work?” If one idea out of 10 is successful, that’s fantastic. Innovation takes time. The last three successful projects took us at least two years to put together because the testing stage is extremely important. The world is immense in terms of what you can do with natural fibres and we are the best at understanding them because we own our supply chain and industrial processes. Innovating in the world of product design then becomes easy.
zegnagroup.com

Read next: On the slopes with Zegna’s top customers as Zegna talks the true price of luxury

Sydney’s fashion scene is seeing a resurgence – and it’s starting in Paddington

Whisk any detractors of bricks-and-mortar retail around Sydney’s Paddington neighbourhood on a Saturday morning and it will quickly become clear that physical shopping is alive and well. Candy-coloured terraces are brimming with well-heeled Antipodeans and out-of-towners; shopkeepers call across the street like old friends; a couple juggle bags with the leash of a terrier-cross as piano chords float out of antiques shops. “It casts a particular kind of spell as a retail destination,” says Kellie Hush, the CEO of Australian Fashion Week. “Paddington works because it isn’t trying to be a mall, it’s a neighbourhood,” she says. “It thrives on daily rituals – coffee, bakeries, flowers, barbecue chicken, pharmacy visits.” And, of course, shopping.

Since the 1960s, Paddington has been considered Sydney’s fashion hub, a pell-mell of creatives and art makers, designers and fashion folk. Developers encouraged independent Australian brands to move in with a vision of incubating talent. A Paddington postcode was a precious gem; a shopfront at The Intersection, a particularly bustling corner, a sign of success. “It’s been the home of many great Australian designers, a stepping stone to domestic and international expansion,” says Hush.

Its location is difficult to fault from any side: Paddington is connected to the city’s CBD by the arterial Oxford Street (named after the London thoroughfare) and is a 10-minute drive from Sydney’s sparkling beaches. Bordering it are the leafy, well-to-do streets of Woollahra and the younger, gastronomically inclined laneways of Surry Hills. High-priced homes nearby lock in a wealthy customer base. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Australian brands from Dinosaur Designs to Zimmerman began selling at the Paddington Markets, a Saturday open-air market that has been operating since the 1970s, and moved into nearby terraces when commercial viability allowed. Many held on to flagships in the area while propelling their brands to greater heights nationally and abroad.

In the 2010s, headwinds arrived. Like many other retail hubs around the world, Paddington had to adapt to a brave new retail landscape, buffeted by the emphatic embrace of online shopping, rising rents and, most recently, tough pandemic-era lockdowns. The area “underwent an identity crisis with the development and rise of mega malls”, says retail consultant Hannah Jensen. Shops sat empty and foot traffic petered out.

But more recently, the area has again reinvented itself, with its reputation as a fashion hub bolstered by a slew of new arrivals. Its growth coincides with an increasing appetite for luxury across Sydney: the nearby CBD is abuzz with new luxury shops: Loro Piana, Chloé, Balenciaga and Max Mara have all opened shops in recent months. Chatswood Chase, a mall on Sydney’s North Shore, reopened in October 2025 with more than 60 global and local retail partners. This ability to marry local and global shopping within a few miles makes the city an investment-worthy destination for brands across every tier of the luxury market. Add the growing affluent consumer base and increased demand for luxury goods across the country (the luxury market in Australia, valued at €7.3bn in 2025, is projected to reach $14.7bn by 2043) and you have a city positioning itself as a compelling luxury frontier in the southern hemisphere.

Paddington regained its stride with “the ‘right-fit’ customer who is looking for an anti-algorithm experience”, says Jensen. This includes a mix of savvy retailers, hospitable service and spaces to linger, starting with newly opened 25hours Hotel The Olympia.

When property developer Dean Levin first asked Caroline Ball and Ant White to open a retail outpost at The Olympia (converted from a disused art deco cinema), they weren’t sold. Ball and White are the co-founders of Sorry Thanks I Love You, a concept store that holds stock of crisp Comme des Garçons T-shirts and eclectic finds from Dover Street Market. They wanted to go big, dreaming of Tokyo department stores and modular, gallery-like spaces that they could fill with music, local chefs and art installations – a cosy hotel boutique wasn’t originally in their plans. “But we saw how we could do all that here,” White tells Monocle. “[Levin] created a space for the Paddington community to come, to gather, to create an ecosystem that works in sync. And that’s exactly what we wanted too.”

The Olympia opened in November 2025 as an art-forward hotel with 109 rooms and four hospitality venues – a wine bar, café, restaurant and rooftop bar with views across the city skyline. It took over a corner of Paddington in a grand wedge of a building. The concentric ripples that the development would encourage were also part of the draw. “This area – here down to Darlinghurst – is feeling so activated, so alive again,” says White.

The Olympia isn’t the area’s only new arrival. The top of Glenmore Road has been almost entirely overhauled in the past two years with the arrivals of local womenswear labels Deiji Studios, St Agni and Nagnata. Party-ready Asta Resort opened in December 2025; Lewi Brown’s brand Earls landed on Oxford Street in July 2025; soon after jeweller Temple of the Sun opened the doors to its flagship shop inspired by Istanbul’s Basilica Cistern, fitted with a barrel-vaulted ceiling and Venetian plastered walls. Lè Baus, which reopened this February, is a collision of record shop, menswear label and coffee counter.

Paddington’s appeal is also linked to its architecture. William Street is a strip of terraced houses that stick to each other like crayon boxes. Wrought-iron balconies are twisted into curlicues, while shopfronts are small, their insides winding and often narrow. “It acts as a protective barrier,” says Jensen, for local labels going up against bigger brands that want more space and window mileage. “In the end, its independence survives because the identity is the attraction,” agrees Hush. Multinational brands can’t expect these character-filled shopfronts to be moulded to their standardised, high-volume models. Hush compares the district with New York’s “more intimate” Nolita or Tokyo’s Daikanyama area, “which blend walkability, design consciousness and understated fashion credibility”.

Hayden Johansen is head of retail at Scanlan Theodore, a long-standing Australian fashion label in the neighbourhood. He has lived in Sydney for 19 years. “Each turn you take is a different feeling,” he says of the area, in which Scanlan Theodore has one of the most recognisable shopfronts, with green walls doubly verdant with ivy. “And now, the feeling is sort of back to what it was like when I first moved here. It’s a lifestyle again.”

The neighbourliness of local shopkeepers is at the heart of this lifestyle. At jeweller Lucy Folk, Monocle is shown to a small terracotta-walled courtyard, dazzlingly lit by the midday sun. The effect is of sitting inside a warm yolk. “We love making tea for everyone,” says brand manager Ruby McCarthy, who offers customers cups of matcha on the house. “It’s a negroni in the summertime.”

Further down the street, suit-maker P Johnson’s space is white and gallery-like, full of antiques, curved lines and good humour. A sunken lounge is the centrepiece. Unusually for informal Sydney, all of the label’s fitters walk around in three-piece suits. They take customers through consultations, fittings and get to know their families. “We text,” says Oscar Ford, the showroom’s assistant manager. He, like other recruits, undertook an eight-month training period, during which he was formally educated on weaves, fabrics, origins and fit. “The Paddington customer takes their time, they linger,” says Ford. “So we need to know what we’re talking about. We’re sitting down with people, we’re educating them. We want to open up a world that’s a little bit unusual.”

It’s the same story at menswear brand Charlton, launched in 2018 by film director Henry Cousins. Its shopfront is petite and low-lit, stocked with shirts in Japanese cotton and merino wool. Cousins moved into a terrace on William Street in 2022 after the pandemic- era exodus of some long-term tenants made rents more affordable. “It’s probably the only reason that some of the smaller brands could move in,” he says. “Everyone really wants to work together, to help each other.”

Cousins recently created a fragrance with Craig Andrade, his shop neighbour and owner of perfumery The Raconteur. They launched it at a street party: “We got to bring Craig’s customers and my clientele together,” says Cousins. “Everyone’s lives were running alongside each other but they had never met. And we got to make that happen.”

For stalwarts and newcomers alike, Paddington’s trajectory only seems to be on the up. Plans are underway to transform the Verona building on Oxford Street into a retail, residential and hospitality space, with a grand old cinema as its centrepiece. Further towards the city, Oxford and Foley, a commercial strip of renovated heritage buildings, is welcoming tenants, including Golf Wang, the fashion label by US musician Tyler, the Creator.

As Jensen says, it’s all part of creating an ecosystem. “Yes, the pavement is uneven and the weather can be unpredictable,” she says, “but you can walk into a shop and be personally greeted and given a bespoke experience – and all at your own pace.”

Read Monocle’s complete city guide to Sydney, here

Olivier Bron shares his bold plan to reimagine Bloomingdale’s and revive NY retail

When Monocle steps into the imposing, black-granite flagship of Bloomingdale’s on Manhattan’s 1,000 3rd Avenue on a sunny spring morning, Gucci sales associates are busy arranging spring/summer accessories, a personal shopper is eyeing a designer dress for a client and an affable worker is vacuuming with great care – all in anticipation of customers streaming into the building in a few hours’ time. Anticipation hangs in the air. It’s a little like being in a concert hall just before the patrons arrive.

Olivier Bron, the CEO of Bloomingdale’s, is here to orchestrate the morning performance. He dashes into the art deco lifts, buzzes through the luxury floor (now home to a new two-level Chanel salon), points out the updated design accents and greets several staffers by name. In his dark-blue suit and white button-down shirt, Bron is the embodiment of a focused and courteous business leader.

More than two years into his role, the 48-year-old executive leads a team of 1,458 employees in New York and 8,475 nationwide. With 31 department stores, 25 outlets and four smaller-scale Bloomie’s outposts, the 154-year-old company is experiencing a revitalisation under Bron, who hopes to usher in a new era for the business by spearheading an ambitious renovation plan and implementing his “Dream Big” strategy. “My dream is to build the next golden age of Bloomingdale’s,” he says. “The last one was in the 1970s and 1980s, when 59th Street was the convergence point for all New Yorkers.”

In its prime, Bloomingdale’s was indeed a cultural force. Known for its fashion, furniture and food, it reeled in shoppers and casual browsers alike. It was among the first North American department stores to install escalators in 1898; it also helped to popularise frozen yoghurt and pioneered the concept of the branded boutique. The retailer aspired to be not just a store but a destination. The UK’s Elizabeth II dropped by the flagship during a 1976 state visit. Yves Saint Laurent debuted his iconic fragrance Opium here, while Massimo Vignelli, the designer behind New York’s original subway map, created the shop’s iconic Big Brown Bag. Bloomingdale’s was once so in vogue that Andy Warhol called it “the new kind of museum for the 1980s”.

But Bron is not seeking merely to glorify the past. Instead, he wants to reimagine Bloomingdale’s and set new, ambitious goals for the business. There are plans for major renovations of all of its top stores and more. To raise the personal-service bar, the company has hired 90 personal shoppers who each now sell more than $1.5m (€1.3m) of goods a year.

Bron is the former Ceo of Thailand’s Central and Robinson Department Stores, and also has stints at Galeries Lafayette and Bain & Company under his belt. Now he is competing in the US retail arena during a particularly uncertain time. The Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing by Saks Global in January caused a major ripple effect across the industry, once again calling the future of US department stores into question. Bron is naturally vigilant but he tells Monocle that he also sees fresh opportunities for Bloomingdale’s to become “the best solution for brands when they consider US distribution”.

“Saks is a major player in the industry so what’s happening is a revolution,” he says. “We don’t know exactly how this story is going to end. A lot of brands are exposed to this situation so it’s scary. This uncertainty is creating turbulence in the market but we don’t spend too much time focusing on what’s happening at Saks.”

Bron is looking further afield for ideas. “The ways in which Asian department stores leverage social media and social shopping are extremely inspiring,” he says. “Meanwhile, in Europe, it’s really about the way that stores are designed and experiences are built.” He notes that his counterparts in Asia have been quicker to focus on the concessions-based model. “Getting the merchandise right isn’t enough. You need to have the right marketing, the right campaigns and the right store design.”

This is why he has been going all in on renovating his company’s property portfolio, starting with the 1,000 3rd Avenue flagship. It’s not just the department store’s outdated black-and-white floor tiles that are being replaced; the goal is to rethink the shop floor completely and, within the next five years, to renovate 12 more top-performing stores in the Bloomingdale’s portfolio. Belgian architect Bernard Dubois, whose finesse can be seen in Paris’s Courrèges store and The Standard hotel in Brussels, has been working on the flagship’s fourth floor, while the retailer’s internal team is refreshing the fifth, opening up space for better storytelling and service.

Bron says that the right retail design can inspire a fresh, more casual way of selling and help to foster connections. “When you think about building a relationship with a person who you enjoy spending time with, you think about space,” he says. “For me, it would probably be a cabin in the mountains with a fireplace, warm materials such as wood, a nice chair and a glass of wine. That’s where I would love to have a discussion with this person. I want all of our customers to feel this way when they come to Bloomingdale’s – for it to feel warm and cosy.”

His philosophy is paying off for Bloomingdale’s. It’s enjoying growing sales, with a 9 per cent year-on-year increase in the third quarter of 2025 (Bloomingdale’s, which is part of holding company Macy’s Inc, doesn’t share full sales figures). Bron is trying to keep up the momentum by challenging teams to outperform their most recent gains.

While some Saks and Neiman Marcus shoppers, suppliers and talent have come knocking at the company’s door, Bron attributes its upturn to the Dream Big vision that was laid out two years ago. This has included opening 3,300 additional points of distribution with new brand partners such as Valentino, Burberry, Chloé, Bottega Veneta, Roger Vivier and Jacquemus.

“The great performance that we have experienced over the past two years is largely the fruit of the strategy,” says Bron. “Is the Saks situation helping our business? Probably but just a little bit – we have had some talent approaching us. But I am sorry that they are facing challenges. It’s not helping our industry. We spend a lot of time defending the department-store model and explaining why it still has a bright future.”

Bron is also adamant that department stores “must have the right service”. It’s why he has been doubling down on wooing high-spending customers. In recent months clients have indulged in private visits to Dior’s 57th Street address; they have been flown to Sicily for a Bulgari outing and enjoyed fine cuisine courtesy of Lalique in Paris. By making shopping more experiential, Bloomingdale’s has been able to reduce its discounted sales significantly compared to 2019. “It’s much more about the relationship, meaning that the customer will be less obsessed with discounting and more interested in the product and getting access to experiences,” he says.

“Olivier came with a good attitude that’s focused on differentiating the chain from rivals and really focusing on the customer,” says Neil Saunders, the managing director of retail research agency Globaldata. “Those things are invaluable in a sector where too little emphasis has traditionally been placed on investing in propositions and creating something meaningful for shoppers.”

While Bloomingdale’s serves the luxury market, it also captures a lot of premium spending from middle-class consumers. “This allows it to fish in multiple pools,” says Saunders. That means On, Nike and Hoka trainers aren’t far from the Christian Louboutin corner with its signature red-lacquered wall. The way that department stores offer proximity to a wide range of products across categories is one of the reasons that Bron is betting on the model’s future. It’s a one-of-a-kind ecosystem that allows brands in all camps to attract customers. Curating a range of independent brands is equally crucial, especially since many have been priced out of New York state’s retail property market.

Bron contends that shoppers want a highly personalised experience. “People are part of a community,” he says. “What are the groups that they belong to? What do they like? How do they act?” He believes that the answer partly lies in bridging what he sees as a disconnect between brand strategies and department stores’ conventional execution. “Sometimes, when you go to shops across the country, there are fantastic brands but you have five products on a rack in the back of a floor with no lights or service. If that’s how you’re representing brands, it’s a problem.”

Such an approach has often left customers disappointed with their department-store experiences compared to those inside single-brand boutiques. So Bron’s latest mission is to match – or even surpass – luxury houses’ level of service. “If you want to buy a bag, you could buy one for $300 [€255]. So why are you buying one for $4,000 [€3,395]?” he asks. “You’re investing in more than just the product. You’re buying a story, an experience and a social marker. Why are our customers walking on the street with a Louis Vuitton or a Chanel bag? It’s not only about the bag. The brand that they carry represents themselves.”

Noting that many Bloomingdale’s customers bought their first luxury products at the department store, Bron sees the retailer as an entry point to this world. Shoppers should feel at ease and free from the intimidation that they might encounter in a stuffy Madison Avenue boutique. “If you want to be a good retailer, you have to care for people,” he says. “That’s why we love this business.” Kevin Harter, the vice-president of Bloomingdale’s integrated marketing and fashion office, nods nearby. He explains that Dream Big was never just a catchphrase. “Two years later, we’re still talking about it,” he says.

The global department-store market is poised to grow from $136bn (€115bn) in 2025 to $202.5bn (€172bn) by 2033, according to data from SkyQuest Technology. This suggests that Bron and his team can continue to dream big. Even when the future of major competitors remains uncertain, Bloomingdale’s offers hope that the glory days of the sector aren’t behind it. “There’s a great opportunity for us right now,” says Bron, listing his plans for the rest of 2026, from launching four major advertising campaigns to hosting 400 client events. “We have to catch it and work hard to deliver.”

Light and shade: Sharp menswear styles to carry you into spring

Stylist: Akio Hasegawa
Model: Ikken Yamamoto
Groomer: Kenichi Yaguchi
Producers: Ryo Komuta and Takahiro Kawata (Rhino Inc.)

Collecting history: Ancient antiquities dealer Galerie Chenel offers the world’s oldest collectables

“It’s about the coup de coeur,” says Ollivier Chenel, describing what attracts him to an object. That arresting, ineffable moment when something calls to you is what Chenel has made his business over the past three decades but, really, it has been a life’s work. During Chenel’s early years, his father was an antiquities dealer in Nice. But where Chenel Snr specialised in art deco furniture, his son found himself intrigued by much older objects. “Like most kids, I wanted to do something a bit different,” he says. Alongside his wife, Gladys, he moved to Paris in 1999 to open their first antiques gallery. They were joined by his brother Adrien six years later. “We were generalists at the time because it was about making our mark and meeting our first clients,” says Chenel. Over time, the trio started to specialise in ancient antiquities.

Gladys oversees the curation of Galerie Chenel’s softly lit space that overlooks the Louvre. Among the pieces that she has currently chosen for display is a marble funerary inscription from the end of the first century, made for a former slave who became a calligraphy instructor. It was discovered by archaeologists in the south of France in the 19th century and is now priced at €480,000, given its rarity. “It’s a unique object not only because of the story that it tells but also the remarkable quality and precision of the calligraphy work,” says Chenel.

The detective work needed to trace the origin and journey of these antiques is what Chenel most enjoys about his job. He becomes animated when describing the background of another item, a fragmented statue of Venus, which will be shown at this year’s Tefaf fair in Maastricht. The marble sculpture was made in the first century and has bounced back and forth across the Atlantic in the private homes and museums of several collectors. The sculpture’s missing limbs (it now consists of just a torso, hips and thighs) only make it more special in Chenel’s eyes and well worth its €650,000 price tag. “Rodin once said that fragmented pieces are more interesting than full sculptures and I wholly agree,” he says.

The gallery often sources from private collections and auctions across Europe and the family has developed a shared taste that defines Galerie Chenel. “We have never argued over a piece, as first and foremost we buy something because we love it,” says Chenel. “Every year, our collection has something new but with our identity at the heart of it. That’s what our clients are coming for – the object but also the experience.”
galeriechenel.com

Endyma Berlin: The secret fashion archive renting museum-quality designer pieces

Whether they’re a student or a creative director, anyone who arrives at fashion archive and dealership Endyma is first asked to wash their hands. Visitors are then instructed not to pull on any of the garments on the racks but gently lift them by their hangers – and ideally avoid touching them at all. “Even if it’s just a bunch of T-shirts, I treat it as a life-or-death situation,” says founder Michael Kardamakis.

These aren’t any old T-shirts, of course. Kardamakis, a Greek-born 33-year-old, has spent 15 years assembling a goldmine of 1980s and 1990s fashion, including the world’s largest collection of Helmut Lang garments. The clothes take up a whole Altbau apartment in Berlin’s Schöneberg district. The front of house is reserved for the Austrian avant-garde designer, while the back holds designers such as Burberry, Armani and Jurgi Persoons.

Endyma (Greek for “garment”) operates as a shop and reference library for the fashion industry, with pieces rented out for shoots or used as inspiration for collections. Designers study the garments to copy the collar construction of a leather coat or to figure out how Lang adapted a military strap for a silk organza dress. “It activates the imagination,” says Kardamakis of Helmut Lang’s design. “It’s just the right amount of wrong.” On the racks, hangers with blue cubes mark items that aren’t for sale. “Others might be available, depending on my mood,” says Kardamakis. Prices start at €150 but rise to four digits for rarer pieces. A Helmut Lang biker jacket from 1999 will set you back about €2,000. Kardamakis’s customers are those in the know. “They’re people who already have 20 biker jackets,” he says.

Every Endyma item is treated with museum-level reverence and all acquisitions get a painstaking touch-up. This can mean taking garments apart by the seams to wash the pieces separately. For shopping appointments, staff will prepare a rack of clothes to try on and then de-lint all of the linings afterwards.

Despite having no formal training in fashion – he studied art history at university – Kardamakis has a couturier’s knowledge of tailoring. During tours, which are given for a modest fee, he waxes poetic about the differences between officers’ greatcoats and sailors’ peacoats, or variations in screen printing on denim. The brands that he collects are those that experimented with the construction of clothes, before much of luxury fashion was swallowed up by marketing budgets and logo-mania. “Brands put on a crazy show but what they make money on is €45 perfumes,” he says. “These were just cool clothes for cool people to wear.” Endyma weaves them back into runways, magazine spreads and your wardrobe too.
endyma.com

On the hunt for a vintage Braun collectable? Only/Once Shop is the place to start

In 1958, Czechoslovakia triumphed at the World Expo in Brussels. Its pavilion, with its sleek modernist design and showcase of innovative new gadgets, won the Gold Star, the fair’s highest accolade. Though it took place decades before he was born, the event provided an unexpected seed of inspiration years later for collectable-design dealer Filip Triner. He left his native city of Munich in 2011 to study graphic design in Prague and experience life in the Czech Republic, the country that his parents had left during the Cold War. When he began to research the 1958 World Expo, he was captivated by the winning pavilion’s sense of style. “Half a century later, I saw so many objects from that period that are now described as Brussels style,” he says. “For people like my grandma, they were communist relics. But for me, they were masterpieces.”

Triner began a personal collection, initially scouring Czech flea markets for lamps, clocks or small electronics. But after moving back to Germany, he discovered something that inspired him even more: objects created by Dieter Rams for Braun when he was the head of design there from 1961 to 1995. “I love their timeless simplicity,” says Triner. He began adding these products to his vastly growing collection.

In 2011, Triner launched an online publication about graphic and web design. Then, with his storage overflowing, he decided to begin selling his product collection to his readers, rather than just writing about them. Thus was born his online shop, Only/Once, in 2013. Through collecting, Triner had learned about product restoration. “I began to love taking an item in bad condition, making it look almost brand new and then passing it on to someone else,” he says. “That process is more satisfying than owning the object.”

Now, Triner sells between seven and 10 products a month. Each is a labour of love. He sources them online or through European dealers and collectors, then two local veteran electricians overhaul them. Finally, Triner or his father deep-clean and polish the pieces to museum quality. Braun products make up most of the business but Triner also sells other 20th-century designs, from brands such as Italy’s Brionvega and German manufacturer Krups. “Krups doesn’t have collectable status but it has beautiful products,” says Triner. “I love its egg timers. When they ring, it’s such a beautiful sound.”

There are currently 100 objects listed on Only/Once and Triner has a further 250 items waiting to be refurbished. For the occasional viewing, he has an appointment-only showroom in the basement of his house in Pfaffenhofen an der Ilm, a town outside Munich. “I do get attached to my pieces,” he says. “But it still feels good to let them go and be loved by someone else.”
onlyonceshop.com

‘Don’t buy the watch – buy the seller’: Massimo Bernardini on carving out a niche in the vintage timepiece market

Massimo Bernardini, better known as Max, has lived more lives than most. Within 10 minutes of entering the Milan dealership that bears his name, which focuses on vintage watches and a few select home décor pieces, Monocle has discovered that the globetrotting polyglot speaks English with an American accent and Spanish with an Argentinean one – and can also converse in Serbo-Croat, thanks to his years at an international school in Belgrade.

After travelling the world with his banker father, Franco, Bernardini moved to Naples at the age of 14. He had been introduced to the world of vintage jewellery by Franco – “a compulsive collector” who, in 1982, left the corporate sector to set up the business that we stand in today. Thanks to his multilingualism, Bernardini landed a job as a translator for Naples-based Argentine football superstar Diego Maradona at the age of 16. “I spent the money that I made by translating on watches,” says Bernardini, leaning back on a chair in his office, a hand-rolled cigarette in his hand. “My first client was Diego,” he adds. “I sold him three Rolex Day-Dates.”

Bernardini took over the family business in 2018. It’s an elegant space: there are cigar holders and vintage glasses, as well as lots of watches in cabinets (the serious ones are locked away in a safe or at the bank). In one corner, resident butler Brandon stands behind a small bar, ready to prepare an espresso or, later in the day, an el presidente (martini with white rum). Max specialises in pre-1990s complicated Patek Philippe and complicated Rolex watches made before 1963, while his staff cover other brands and periods. If you’re a regular collector, you’ll be ushered into his office to examine an intricate watch dial under a microscope.

“Might I introduce you to his royal highness the 1518,” says Bernardini, pulling out a 1940s Patek Philippe. “Very few were sold with a gold bracelet,” he adds, handing the timepiece to Monocle and gently asking us to hold it over his leather-topped desk, so that, if it were to fall, it won’t hit the floor (it later emerges that the watch is worth about €1m). Bernardini says that of the 281 1518s made between 1941 and 1952, he has sold 97 of them.

Though Bernardini now faces competition from the internet, he has built up his client list over three decades, with much of his business coming from the Middle East, Asia and the US. The company includes 10 staff in Milan and a showroom in Hong Kong. He says that he gets “a huge kick” out of rare timepieces and the attention to detail with which they are made. “This watch,” he says, pointing to the €600,000 “Tasti Tondi” Patek Philippe on his own wrist, “doesn’t scream at you. But it’s rare, it’s beautiful and there’s no CNC [computer numerical control]. There was a genius of craftmanship that has been wiped off the face of this planet.”
bernardinimilano.com

Grab a seat at Trovo, Madrid’s chair specialist sitting pretty

For many madrileños, Sundays kick off with a bit of antiquing and tapeo around the city’s largest and oldest open-air market, El Rastro. Its stalls, where objects old and new have been sold as far back as the 18th century, have given rise to a clutch of antique shops that remain open beyond the market’s hours of operation.

Lola Feijóo, an antiquarian originally from Galicia, opened her shop dedicated exclusively to chairs in 2023. Though only a short walk from the mercado, Trovo offers a fresh perspective. “It’s true that when I started – and even as recently as last week – colleagues from El Rastro will come by and ask me in shock, ‘Only chairs?’” she says, laughing.

After earning an art history degree, Feijóo spent more than 20 years working across the antiques and restoration industries with a specialisation in appraisal and valuation. When she decided to open a space of her own, her instincts led her to make an initial acquisition for an undetermined future business. That purchase was of a set of wood-and-rattan Dutch bobbin chairs from the 1920s, a style known for knobbly, lathe-turned legs and arms. The procurement of this piece set the course for Feijóo’s venture. “The chair is an object that has been designed in so many ways,” she says. “I was drawn to the fact that I could explore the dimensions of chairs and the materials that they’re made from, as well as pieces made by specific architects and designers, though there are many wonderful examples by anonymous designers too.”

Focusing on seating was also a practical matter: Feijóo is able to lift and handle the objects herself and collect them without the need for a large storage space. In her cosy shop, visitors can find chairs that stack, others that fold and some that are upholstered; there are those that are part of sets alongside the solitary and the sculptural.

Nestled along Trovo’s smooth white walls are cult classics: for example, a pair of Gaudi armchairs by Vico Magistretti in off-white fibre-reinforced polyester (€650) or a reissued Argyle chair by Charles Rennie Mackintosh in black lacquered ash (€1,200). Feijóo is particularly excited about a recent find – four Peota chairs from the 1970s by Gigi Sabadin, who used plywood to create gorgeous curves. Feijóo sources her chairs globally and makes regular visits to France and Italy.

Feijóo’s favourites are those by Italian designers from the 1950s and 1960s but she is not a slave to specific styles or periods, instead relying on her instincts. She is also a proponent of mixing chairs as part of developing a personal sense of interior-design style. “I am of the mindset that if a chair’s design is beautiful, it is imbued with its own inherent personality,” she says. “So it will always pair well with other chairs.”
trovo4.es

The London art director collecting Earth’s rarest sculptures: Meteorites

“Everyone’s fascinated by the idea of holding a piece of the solar system,” says Jethro Sverdloff, co-director of London’s Art Ancient. Sverdloff deals in “exceptional works” – unusual objects that include Corinthian helmets and Iron Age brooches. His business, however, is increasingly devoted to meteorite fragments. In the world of collecting, they are often called the “ultimate rarity”.

Sverdloff shows Monocle a small black meteorite that landed in Costa Rica in 2019. It formed part of a meteorite shower that was captured on CCTV and dashcams. The piece is on sale, together with the kennel that broke its fall, for £500,000 (€577,000). “Until recently, meteorites weren’t considered a collector’s item,” says Sverdloff, who selects the rocks for his gallery based on their beauty. “Meteorites bear the scars from their atmospheric entry to Earth, which alters their shape and colour.” The mesmerising sparkle of Fukang meteorite fragments, discovered in China’s Xinjiang province, makes them the trophy piece of any collection. “These translucent, gem-quality crystals were shooting stars and they still look like them,” says Sverdloff.

As well as their aesthetic quality, the scientific significance of meteorites makes them precious artefacts. Sverdloff describes them as “messengers from the formation of the early solar system, 4.65 billion years ago”. Meteorites are sculpted by events such as cosmic collisions or extreme heat, creating thumb-like depressions or glassy coatings. These signifiers fascinate Sverdloff. “I have always been drawn to beautiful, storytelling objects, created by the most improbable of events,” he says. “Even after years of handling them, that sense of wonder never really goes away.”

Some meteorites are far rarer than sapphires or diamonds and the sales figures support this. In 2025 a 24.5kg meteorite sold at Sotheby’s for $5.3m (€4.6m), becoming a bellwether for a category that, 10 years previously, was barely present at art auctions. Art Ancient was the first specialist to attend Frieze Masters in 2019 when the gallery presented a timeline of 54 objects – from meteorites to elephant-bird eggs – that charted the history of our planet.

“Major art fairs have shown that meteorites have a cross-category appeal,” says Sverdloff. Art Ancient’s clients include technology and finance entrepreneurs as well as interior designers looking for statement pieces. “What these clients share is curiosity and a desire for pieces that are genuinely rare, visually beautiful and come with great stories.”

How to show off your otherworldly artefact? “Meteorites should be displayed like any other rare, precious object,” says Sverdloff. “When you put them in a vitrine with explanatory labels, they read as specimens. Instead, we give them space and lighting, so they read as sculptures.”
artancient.com