Monocle on Design
Your essential guide to design, covering furniture, craft, and architecture. Discover fresh stories, rising talents, and the latest from top studios.
Latest Episodes
Extra: Spectacular vision
Travis Elborough, author of ‘Through the Looking Glasses’, shares the curious history of sunglasses in the early 20th century.
London design and Florentine fashion
In London, we visit the city’s new Design District and browse the shelves of homeware and fashion shop Labour and Wait. Plus: we get the highlights from Florentine fashion trade show, Pitti Uomo.
Extra: Lawrence Steele
The creative director of Aspesi discusses the fashion label’s focus on quality materials and its ability to carve out its own path by avoiding fads.
‘Carve, Curve, Cane’
We stop by a new exhibition by design studio Bassamfellows in New York, then discuss sustainability and the circular economy with design writer Katie Treggiden. Plus: we get the highlights from the menswear collections featured at Paris Fashion Week.
Extra: Climate care
We visit an exhibition at Vienna’s Museum of Applied Arts that hopes to convince visitors to behave more responsibly towards the environment.
Fashion special: Ferrari, Milan, Begg x Co
June is always a busy month for fashion but, after a quiet year, summer 2021 is packed. We hear from esteemed automaker Ferrari about its new clothing line, return to Men’s Fashion Week in Milan, and peek behind the factory doors of Scotland’s Begg x Co.
Extra: ‘Two Sides of the Border’
Mexican architect Tatiana Bilbao discusses her new book ‘Two Sides of the Border: Reimagining the Region’. Its aim? To look at the shared histories, cultures and economics of the US and Mexico through the lens of architecture and design.
Design for the community
Community involvement in the design process is good for the public and creatives alike. We meet Yinka Ilori, the designer whose artworks have brightened many civic spaces, and visit Tableau Zürich, the Swiss outdoor gallery bringing art to the public. Plus: a preschool in rural Vietnam that puts its local…
Extra: Design Shanghai
Zhuo Tan, director of Design Shanghai, discusses the return of colour and positive attitudes to the trade booths at this year’s event.
London Design Biennale
The team touches down at the London Design Biennale at Somerset House. We speak to this year’s artistic director Es Devlin and the curators and designers behind the Ghanaian, French, Chilean and African Diaspora pavilions.
