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Cruiser jacket
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Monocle magazine July / August
The Monocle Book of Photography: Reportage From Places Less Explored
15 year anniversary poster
Palace of Serbia (Print), Romaine Laprade
Linen Valstarino Jacket
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Ekia Bag
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Equinox Light U Check-in suitcase 80 L
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Large B5 Hardcover Linen notebook
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Candle Four: Yoyogi
Scent One: Hinoki
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Rami Zeidan founded Life House, a boutique hotel brand and hotel-management technology company, in 2017. He talks to Monocle’s Tomos Lewis about his ambitions for the company and explains why technology should not be disruptive but instead enhance what a hotel does best: making its guests feel welcome.
Leah D’Ambrosio founded small-line knitwear brand Wol Hide in Philadelphia in 2016. She discusses the benefits of keeping her company small, growing it incrementally and countering the fashion industry’s more environmentally intensive production practices.
The brand was founded in Amsterdam in 2020 with the goal of creating a truly sustainable running shoe entirely from plants. The resulting product, which is one of the few vegan-approved sports shoes on the market, is suitable for novices and experienced runners alike. Co-founder Dominic Sinnott and head of brand Nina Zywietz tell Monocle’s Tomos Lewis about the journey.
The modern, linear manufacturing that is typical of much fashion and textile production can be hugely wasteful and damaging to the environment. While the sector has been wising up, it’s not happening fast enough. We meet two entrepreneurs who explain how innovations in technology and a revolution in aftercare can ensure that fashion and textile production needn’t cost the earth. Beth Esponnette is the head of Unspun, a robotics and digital clothing company that builds custom jeans on demand for every individual consumer. Its mission is to reduce those grim global carbon-emissions figures through automated, localised and intentional manufacturing. Vanessa Jacobs is the co-founder of the world’s first aftercare platform for fashion, a business that helps the world’s biggest brands offer care, repair and restoration to their customers.
Meet Måns Ulvestam and Karl Rosander. They founded Acast and are the brains behind Sesamy, a business on a mission to “redemocratise” access to copyrighted content in the digital realm. The founding principle? You only pay for what you want and you consume it however you wish. Or as Ulvestam has pithily put it: why pay for the whole buffet, if you only want one dish? Ulvestam and Rosander, both serially successful digital entrepreneurs and award-winners, describe the start of the Sesamy journey.
Launched in 2015, the Italian swimwear brand seeks to capture the elegant spirit of the Italian seaside in the 1960s. Founder Anna Laura Hoefer, an economics graduate from Milan’s Bocconi University, saw an opportunity in the market for elegantly tailored bathing trunks for men after a friend in Italy’s fashion capital had problems finding stylish beach attire that looks good in the water. Today the company continues to draw design inspiration from the Bel Paese as it branches out into summery shirts and trousers.
We dive into the latest edition of Monocle magazine to celebrate an innovative business that’s really taking off. Not only is the Green Flight Academy the first professional flight school to offer training on electric aircraft but it likely represents the most eco-friendly way to secure a pilot’s licence.
Born into a family that owned one of the largest chocolate manufacturers in Damascus, Tareq Hadhad arrived in Canada in 2016 as a refugee of Syria’s civil war. He explains how he launched boutique chocolate brand Peace By Chocolate from his new home on Canada’s Atlantic coast.
Grapekeeper allows anyone to become a winemaker by letting them own a portion of a vineyard in leading European wineries, which are committed to sustainable viticulture. Founded in Holland in 2018 by Ana Monforte, an environmental engineer and wine enthusiast, customers have access to premium estates and the possibility of tailoring wines to suit their palates. All this while helping to lower costs for producers who use traditional practices.
Kate Swanson founded stackable cookware brand Ensembl in Montrèal in 2020. She explains why she left a successful career in law to set up the business.
In 2018 we met Dax Dasilva, the founder and then CEO of Lightspeed, a technology firm that he started in Montréal in 2005. He has since created Age of Union, a non-profit environmental alliance, and been appointed executive chair of Lightspeed’s board of directors. How do these latest moves build upon the ambitions that defined the start of his entrepreneurial journey? Here we look back on Dasilva’s inspirations and choices in founding Lightspeed.
Fried Vancraen is the founder and CEO of Materialise, a company that uses additive manufacturing (3D printing) to develop meaningful applications that contribute to a better and healthier world.
We dive into Monocle’s latest issue and celebrate an innovative business built on the foundations of another. We visit the site of Nintendo’s former headquarters in Kyoto, where Marufukuro, a new hotel designed by the great Tadao Ando, has recently opened.
South Africa native Judy Sanderson initially had a career selling consumer goods for US multinational Procter & Gamble. But after deciding to pursue her dream of designing clothes, she founded her namesake fashion label in Porto 2019. The brand draws inspiration from Africa and manufactures clothes using the sustainable techniques of a network of Portugal-based producers.
A collective of independent businesses in Cardiff has breathed new life into a retail format that many claim has had its day: the strip mall. Monocle’s Tomos Lewis explains the success of the Clearwater Parade collective.
Children’s clothing label Bebe Organic was founded in 2014 by Birgit Kadak, a graduate of the London College of Fashion. Kadak spent her early years in the fashion industry working in luxury womenswear but after her first child was diagnosed with a sensitive skin condition, she began to research the best natural and organic fabrics for her son. This prompted her to create a sustainable and stylish collection aimed at the younger end of the market. Inspired by countryside living in her native Estonia, her timeless designs have won over clients from Japan to the US. Today, Kadak oversees production of her clothing in Portugal.
Inspired by the climate of California, Rebecca Grenell founded her womenswear brand Lacausa in 2013. Manufactured at small, family-owned factories in Los Angeles, Lacausa’s range of thoughtful, ethically made clothing has become a staple in wardrobes around the world.
Stelar was founded in Bali in 2017 by Scottish-born goldsmith Lorna Watson, a veteran of luxury design. Stelar’s artisans create elevated women’s accessories using many of Bali’s long-standing weaving methods, some of which have been eroded in recent years by the pressures of mass-manufacturing. Stelar’s range of bags is now available at select outposts around the world, each one fostering a unique relationship between the person who buys the product and the artisan who crafted it.
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