With fewer clients around, smart Japanese hairdressers are putting design to the fore to win valuable customers. And there are fringe benefits too. We take a pew in three of Tokyo’s finest establishments.
A collaborative exhibition between Fabrica and Airbnb at Salone del Mobile will examine hospitality and hearty welcomes. That it will all take place at a magnificent private home made Monocle only too happy to accept an…
We are living through a new golden age of debate and salons. Talks and conversations are the new religion. We asked our senior correspondent to spend one week at the heart of her city’s debates.
We sample seafood at a one-time grocery store and try mezze at a former 1950s beauty salon that’s now a Turkish taverna. There’s even time to wet your whistle with some lively Italian aperitivos. Don’t worry about breakfast…
For a break from Bairro Alto take a trip to the salubrious neighbourhood of Príncipe Real. The shops along Rua Dom Pedro V sell specialist Portuguese products and new businesses are quick to move in. There’s also a park…
Stockholm’s Svenskt Tenn has had its one and only homewares shop at the same location for 84 years. As Monocle discovers, a redesign of the iconic store hasn’t lost any of the homely charm of the firm’s idiosyncratic fou…
In a globalised market flooded with faux-artisan branding, real craftsmen are endangered. But in Kyoto, where tradition rules, a new initiative is refreshing generations-old techniques to bring Japanese craft to a worldwide…
Monocle has drawn up a shortlist of 20 people – from politics, business, music and design – who we want to hear more of in 2009. By overcoming the odds, finding gaps in the market and thinking creatively, they’ve already…
News that Tokyo’s iconic 1960s Hotel Okura is to be reconstructed has been met with outrage from admirers of its unique design. While Tokyo’s changing skyline is what makes it special, demolitions like this threaten its…