The Art of Impossible Perfection: Demna’s Final Couture Statement at Balenciaga

“I have come as close as possible to being satisfied in this endless pursuit of impossible perfection,” writes Demna in his farewell to Balenciaga couture, marking the close of a transformative decade at the helm of one of fashion’s most revered maisons. The 54th Couture Collection is not merely a finale; it is a culmination—a poetic, exacting thesis on craftsmanship, silhouette, and legacy. Shot across Paris and laid bare in both look and making, the collection fuses the radical spirit of Cristóbal Balenciaga with Demna’s own uncompromising vision for the future of fashion: personal, sculptural, and exquisitely strange.

A corresponding film directed by Gianluca Migliarotti—known for his documentary O’Mast on Neapolitan tailoring—offers rare access into the meticulous inner workings of the House’s couture ateliers. In it, premières, tailors, and designers narrate the multi-layered labor behind each garment. The documentary traces the making of corseted gowns, reconstructed archival silhouettes, and collaborations with legendary artisans like Maison Lemarié, William Amor, and fan-maker Duvelleroy. It is a film not just of fashion, but of devotion—a love letter to the human hands that define couture.

The collection opens with a tribute to “La Bourgeoisie,” a term once synonymous with conformity, now mined for its elegance and severity. Tailored jackets bear tulip lapels that frame the face like armor; high collars evoke both Medici nobility and Nosferatu’s haunting grace. In Demna’s hands, bourgeois tropes are recoded—pierced with irony, elegance, and a commanding silhouette. “Garments are sculptural and intricate in their construction,” he notes, “while embracing minimalism and reduction in their architecture.” This paradox—maximal form through minimal means—runs like a seam throughout the collection.

Corsetry, once an instrument of feminine discipline, is reengineered for comfort across ten different looks. An airy pink debutante dress in technical Japanese organza, a diva gown encrusted in black sequins, and a draped one-seam gown conjure Old Hollywood glamour as seen through a funhouse mirror. These are not nostalgic recreations—they’re cinematic hallucinations. A “mink” coat made from embroidered feathers, worn by Kim Kardashian as a tribute to Elizabeth Taylor, is paired with the actress’s actual diamond pendant earrings, on loan from Lorraine Schwartz. Over 1,000 carats of custom jewelry glimmer throughout the collection—white diamonds, Padparadsha sapphires, and canary yellow stones—turning the runway into a constellation of light.

Other garments are grounded in quiet subversion. A silk bomber jacket becomes as featherweight as tissue; a summer taffeta blouson transforms into businesswear via sleight of hand. One standout detail: 300 kilometers of tufted embroidery used to create trompe-l’œil corduroy pants, a feat of excess that reads as effortlessness. “They’re the first ‘corduroy’ pants I want to wear,” Demna says, with a wink toward comfort as luxury.

A standout thread in both the show and its documentary is tailoring—specifically the collaboration with four family-run Neapolitan ateliers. Nine suits, developed as “one-size-fits-all” garments measured on a bodybuilder, are modeled on a diverse cast of bodies. “It is not the garment that defines the body, but the body that defines the garment,” Demna writes. This democratic inversion of couture’s traditional ethos suggests a radical inclusivity. Migliarotti’s camera captures the intimacy of fittings, the choreography of needle and cloth, the philosophy of hands that have stitched for generations.

Heritage and transformation are braided throughout. A 1957 floral print from Cristóbal Balenciaga’s archives resurfaces on a sequined skirt suit. A replica of a 1967 houndstooth look once worn by Danielle Slavik, one of the house’s original muses, becomes the “Danielle” suit. Each is a memory made tactile. The finale gown—a seamless guipure lace sculpture shaped using millinery techniques—embodies the house’s entire language in a single garment: restraint and drama, memory and innovation, body and architecture.

The accessories deepen the message. Logos on bags are replaced by the wearer’s name, subverting the idea of branded status. Duvelleroy fans, recreated over nearly 200 hours of craft, flutter like time machines: one from 1895, another from 1905. Flower brooches are crafted from discarded tissue paper and silk, offering waste a new role as adornment. Even the couture sneaker—handmade using traditional shoemaking techniques—feels like a manifesto: this is couture for the street, couture for now.

Demna’s voice is not the only one heard. The soundtrack of the show features the names of his team—an act of collective authorship, a rare moment of ego dissolution in a field known for solitary genius. This final gesture is perhaps the most emotional: a house, after all, is not built alone.

As Demna departs Balenciaga couture, he leaves behind not a collection, but a philosophy. Couture is not anachronism—it is resistance. It is an art of slowness, of refusal, of obsessive care in a time of disposability. “This collection is the perfect way for me to finish my decade at Balenciaga,” he writes. “The ultimate minimal sculptural gown…represents everything this House stands for.”

What does Balenciaga stand for now? In this collection: freedom, contradiction, legacy, reinvention. A house haunted by its past, electrified by its present, and—through the ghost stitch of every seam—already dreaming of what comes next.

Balenciaga by Demna: An End of An Era

At Kering's Paris headquarters, a one-time exhibition unfolds Demna's work for Balenciaga, featuring pieces across 30 collections from the past decade.

 
 

In the historic Kering headquarters at 40 Rue de Sèvres, lies Demna Gvasalia’s resume from the last decade at Balenciaga. A decade of radical creation and endless ideas unfolded in this complete, uncensored retrospective, curated by Demna himself.

Demna’s magnitude as a designer cannot be denied, although many critics have tried; this exhibit shows his credentials as a creative force, a marketing genius, and a brilliant couturier. Through 101 selected pieces, we are taken through Demna’s aesthetic autopsy, inviting us to explore how the designer revolutionized the face of contemporary fashion, challenged pre-established rules, and posed a satirical lens on society through his designs.

Demna had become a synonym for oversized, deconstructed silhouettes and has deeply influenced fashion’s embrace of streetwear, often sparking controversy with his idea of wearable casual wear.

The exhibition opens with a rejection letter Demna received in 2007 from Balenciaga, which reads: "Dear Demna, Thank you for your interest in an internship at the Menswear Design Team at Balenciaga. We've carefully reviewed your application and, after consideration, we will not be moving forward with your candidacy at this time. Your profile will remain on file should future opportunities come up."

This email isn’t about holding a grudge, but rather a gentle reminder that rejection can often be a redirection toward something greater, like in Demna’s case, where missing out on an internship led to becoming a creative director.

Now, as he prepares for his last couture show, Demna concludes his long journey with the presumption that his force cannot be denied, and we’re left longing to see his new chapter in Gucci.

 

Courtesy of Balenciaga

 

Balenciaga by Demna is on view from June 26 through July 9, at 40 Rue de Sèvres, 75007, Paris.

Encounters at the Barbican: Giacometti x Huma Bhabha

Special Guest Star, 2016. Huma Bhabha. Clay, wood, wire, t-shirt, acrylic, tin, paint brush, White Tailed Deer horns, and steel. Overall: 39 3/4 x 94 x 13 3/8 inches. Image credit: Kerry McFate. Courtesy of the artist and David Zwirner Gallery

text by Poppy Baring

The Barbican’s Level 2 gallery reopened in May with a joint exhibition featuring sculptures by Alberto Giacometti and Huma Bhabha. Encounters: Giacometti x Huma Bhabha features works, some of which are nearly a century old, that explore the human figure, the trauma it faces, and the process of survival. This ‘dialogue across time’ allows viewers to examine the artists’ responses to human vulnerability, violence, and displacement, and is the first time Bhabha has exhibited her work at a public London gallery.

The entrance upon arrival is currently home to four titan-aged bronze sculptures made by Bhabha. Debuted in New York last year, where the artist currently lives, these figures are being displayed in Europe for the very first time. Continuing inside, visitors encounter “The Glade” (Composition with nine figures), created in 1950 by Giacometti, a small tabletop sculpture that marked a significant shift in Giacometti’s practice. These supremely thin, isolated figures were created to capture people as they were, vulnerably themselves, on the street. 

Alberto Giacometti holding Three Men Walking, 1940s, Photo: anonymous, Silver print on paper, 11.9 x 17.2 cm, Archives Fondation Giacometti. © Succession Alberto Giacometti / Adagp, Paris 2024


Giacometti’s observation of individuals “coming and going...unconscious and mechanical... each having an air of moving on its own, quite alone,” inspired how Bhabha approached the composition of the exhibition. She sets sculptures up as groups and allows visitors to potentially cross paths with these works, as though the space were a public street, bringing a sense of life and interaction to the statues. The message becomes progressively clearer, as phantom-like, vulnerable figures gradually replace fragmented works. Collectively, both these artists’ work point to conflict and highlight its effects as human life becomes increasingly disfigured.

This exhibition is entirely suited to the Barbican. As far as Giacometti is concerned, he made some of his most significant pieces at the same time as the Barbican was under construction. Art and architecture made in this post-war period are often considered a response to the brutality of the Second World War, and both Giacometti’s work and the gallery, at that time, proposed a new (not so fresh) perspective on what it means to live and be human. The non-materialisticness of the work and the space that surrounds it creates a mass of meaningful beauty that explores a way of thinking where art is deemed crucial to living.

The Encounters: Giacometti x Huma Bhabha exhibition is on view through August 10th 2025 at the Barbican, Silk Street, London, EC2Y 8DS.

 

What Should it Be, 2024, Huma Bhabha. Painted and patinated bronze and concrete pedestal. 44 3/4 x 31 x 31 inches. Photo credit: Kerry McFate. Courtesy of the artist and David Zwirner Gallery


 

It Has Its Own Presence: Read an Interview of Ceramicist Kathy Butterly →

Photo credit: Alan Weiner

Kathy Butterly, sixty-two, is one of forty-one women whose work is being showcased at The Grey Art Museum’s exhibition, Anonymous Was A Woman. The show celebrates the recipients of the grant, anonymously awarded to mid-career women artists living and working in the United States. Butterly’s three ceramic sculptures—Heavy Head (2002), Chinese Landscape (2005), and Garter (1996)—are three of the 251 works on display until July 19, 2025. 

Butterly, born in Amityville, New York, splits her time between New York City and Maine. “If I didn’t have Maine as an outlet, I don’t think I’d still be in New York,” she said over the phone from her home in Maine. Butterly did not come from an art family—one of the reasons she initially believed she would study interior design over an art like ceramics. But once she began studying at Moore College of Art and Design, where she met American sculptor Viola Frey, she discovered her passion for combining painting and sculpture. While she sipped juice from a wine glass and I coffee from a ceramic mug, we talked about the evolution of her work, her Anonymous Was a Woman grant, and the different functions of the interiors and exteriors of her lively sculptures. Read more.

Paris Couture Week Predictions Through the Lens of Charles Worth's Current Retrospective @ the Petit Palais

Unlike other fashion, Paris moves through layers of history and a continuous dialogue between tradition and change. But in today’s challenging and ever-changing economic and political climate, what can we expect from this trendsetting city next?

 

Worth & Bobergh, Robe à transformation, vers 1866-1868.
Faille verte et tulle de soie. Philadelphia museum of Art, États-Unis d’Amérique.
© 125th Anniversary Acquisition.
Gift of the heirs of Charlotte Hope Binney Tyler Montgomery, 1996, Philadelphia museum of Art.

 


text by Kim Shveka


As Haute Couture week descends on Paris, the city reasserts its place as the center of gravity in fashion, the stage where elegance is both performed and consumed. The newly opened Charles Worth exhibition, Worth, Inventing Haute Couture, at the Petit Palais deepens this position, reminding us that Paris’s fashion dominance is not merely current. It is layered with history, narratives, and unbreakable foundations that were built since the 15th century. Worth is cited as the father of Haute Couture; he altered the way to view fashion, from practicality to a status of art. He created a system that is defined by exclusivity, artisanal craft, and aesthetic authority that helped distinguish Paris as a city where fashion is understood not only as clothing, but as culture. The aim was not just beauty, but distinction—an aesthetic nationalism that still echoes in the way French fashion is marketed and perceived today. From this foundation, figures like Coco Chanel, Christian Dior, and Yves Saint Laurent built empires not only by introducing new silhouettes but by shifting the paradigm of femininity, luxury, and modernity. The designers didn’t just reflect French culture; they directed it to the rest of the world.

The other fashion capitals each carry their own codes. London is where fashion is pushed to its most conceptual edge. New York delivers commercial clarity and cultural speed. Milan prizes structure, refinement, and a family-driven approach to legacy. But Paris continues to present itself as the stage where it all connects—the final act, the definitive voice. Its claim to be the capital is not just symbolic; it is structural: the power, the history, and the industry still move to the Parisian rhythm. And yet, that same stage is now caught in a cycle that resists disruption.

Alongside the grandeur of the maisons and the ritualistic anticipation of the shows, there’s an unsettling pattern repeating itself in the background. In the span of a few months, many of the major houses in the fashion industry have appointed new creative directors, reshuffling the same names that have long been in circulation. With every season, the game of musical chairs intensifies, and what once felt like an exciting leap now looks more like a closed loop. The question is no longer who gets the chair but whether there are any chairs left for those who have never had the chance to sit in one.

This past year has seen dramatic shifts across the Parisian landscape. After years of dominating Balenciaga with a confrontational, minimal lexicon, Demna left the house and was swiftly appointed at Gucci. In his place, Pierpaolo Piccioli, formerly of Valentino, took over creative direction at Balenciaga, signaling a sharp pivot from shock to softness, from provocation to romantic craft. At Dior, Jonathan Anderson, who had already proven his capacity for reinvention at Loewe, was named creative director for the entire house, including menswear, womenswear, and couture, a role no one has held since Christian Dior himself. Sarah Burton, once the artistic director of Alexander McQueen, made her debut at Givenchy with a recalibrated take on femininity anchored in tailoring and strength. Meanwhile, Glenn Martens, already at Diesel and Y/Project, was announced as the new face of Maison Margiela following John Galliano’s departure, with a highly anticipated debut planned for tomorrow.

 

Gazette du Bon ton, Entre chien et loups, 1912. 24,7 × 19,2 cm. 
Palais Galliera, musée de la Mode de la Ville de Paris. CCØ Paris Musées / Palais Galliera, musée de la Mode de la Ville de Paris.

 

On the surface, this looks like change. But beneath the headlines and the hashtags, it’s the same logic that’s been quietly driving the industry for years. None of these appointments were about discovering an unheard voice or matching a designer with a house based on his aesthetic affiliation; they were about bankability. The equation is simple and cynical: if a designer has already succeeded commercially, they can probably do it again. A recognizable name promises brand buzz, social media traction, and a fast return on investment—all in a fragile market where luxury sales are under pressure and leather goods are expected to do the heavy lifting.

This tendency has made the creative director role more of a function than a vision. It has also made the path to that role narrower than ever. The doors that were once open for young designers with new ideas are now closed by default. It is not that the industry doesn’t want new voices; it simply doesn’t leave them enough space to develop, to fail, or to prove themselves beyond a single collection. With every appointment handed to a designer who has already made it, another seat is taken from someone who hasn’t.

The expectation is that each new director will immediately stabilize revenue, secure brand loyalty, and carry the weight of legacy while still offering something “fresh.” But freshness is difficult to fake, and even harder to maintain when everyone is rotating between the same houses. The result is a kind of creative fatigue. Consumers may still buy, but the cultural impact of each new collection grows weaker.

 

Worth, Manteau de cour porté par Franca Florio, 1902. Palazzo Pitti / Galleria del Costume , Florence, Italie. 
© Museo della Moda e del Costume, Palazzo Pitti, Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence. Ministero della Cultura.

 

John Galliano’s recent departure from Maison Margiela deepens this dilemma. His Artisanal Spring 2024 was arguably the most talked about in years, precisely because it evoked a time when a fashion show was true art, when fashion shows aimed to move, not sell. Yet, such significant shows appear so rarely now. And with the latest wave of appointments, they seem even less likely. Why, then, are even the most profitable luxury houses struggling to produce that level of artistry? Can a system so driven by metrics and performance indicators ever make room for true creative vision again? These new directors may bring efficiency, consistency, or even spectacle, but they don’t replace what the industry is truly missing: a sense of forward motion. The biggest luxury brands carry immense responsibility; they dictate trends and set the standard. Yet, they consistently fail to raise the bar, to truly innovate, and to genuinely make us feel something.

This is the paradox Paris finds itself in. The city still holds the world’s attention, but it is no longer opening doors the way it once did. Couture Week is the moment when fashion is meant to step outside of commerce and return to craftsmanship and conceptual purity. But even here, the same logic applies. Trust is placed in those who have already delivered profits, not in those who could shape the future if only given the platform.

What is missing is not talent. It is the willingness to take a risk on someone who is not already on the circuit. The problem is not just that the chairs are constantly changing; it’s that they are being filled in a closed room. The game is being played by the same few, while others wait in the wings for a door that may never open.

As the week unfolds and the collections are unveiled, Paris will once again claim its position at the center of fashion. But unless the industry begins to create space for new perspectives, it risks becoming a hall of mirrors. The reflection is beautiful, but it does not move.

 

Nadar, La comtesse Greffulhe, 1886.
Procédé photomécanique, 29 × 16,8 cm.
Palais Galliera, musée de la Mode de la Ville de Paris.
CCØ Paris Musées / Palais Galliera, musée de la Mode de la Ville de Paris.

 

Worth, Inventing Haute Couture is on view through September 7th at the Petit Palais, Av. Winston Churchill, 75008, Paris.

The Arrival of Untitled Art Fair In Houston Reveals A Hidden Historical Art Scene

Mark your calendars for September 19. The Lone Star State is an up-and-coming art destination.

The Menil Collection, Modern and Contemporary galleries. Photo by Caroline Phillipone


text by Karly Quadros


Houston may call to mind NASA, BBQ, and hurricanes, but just beneath the surface of one of America’s most diverse cities, a vibrant art scene is emerging.

On track to become the third-largest city in America within the next decade, Houston is a city on the rise—quite literally. It’s a place where bigger is always better and change is constant. Leaving very little in the way of historical architecture, the city finds itself perpetually busy building the next bigger and better thing. There’s no single racial or ethnic majority. Instead, the city attracts everyone from French art collectors to Sudanese refugees, a fact that’s produced a richly diverse food scene.

But it’s Houston’s art scene that’s attracting international attention. With Untitled Art, Houston making its debut in Houston on September 19, director Michael Slenske and executive director Clara Andrade Pereira are bridging the gap between the city’s historic institutional art world and contemporary audiences.

Half a century ago, a booming oil industry fueled Houston’s art scene while the rest of the country was sinking into recession. Two significant investments in the city’s institutional art infrastructure—the construction of the Contemporary Art Museum Houston and a multimillion-dollar renovation to the Museum of Fine Arts Houston—signaled a push to establish Houston as one of America’s artistic centers. A local art scene cropped up around the Lawndale Alternative Art Space at the University of Houston (now the Lawndale Art Center), founded by sculptor James Surls. Meanwhile, other standout artists, such as Julian Schnabel and Robert Rauschenberg, were developing their distinctive styles in Texas. Then a mid-80s oil bust interrupted the scene’s boom. Now, there’s a renewed effort to finish what Surls and Harithas started and put Houston on the international art world’s map.

The Menil Collection campus. Photo by Grant Gay

The foremost underpinnings of Houston’s art scene stem from one family. Billionaire collectors and patrons of the arts, Dominique and John de Menil, formed the backbone of Houston’s fine art world, encapsulated in the Menil Collection. The couple’s story reads like something out of a spy novel: Dominique, an oil heiress to an oil company, married John, an investment banker from a family ennobled by Napoleon, only to be forced to flee their home in Paris through a Spanish port on a steamer bound for Cuba in 1944 when the Nazis invaded. The couple eventually settled in Houston, a small city on the Gulf of Mexico with a barely nascent art scene. Dominique credited the lack of art in the city as the exact reason why she began collecting in the first place.

The de Menil’s private collection reflected an adventurous and forward-thinking mindset. As early champions of Max Ernst, they mounted his first solo museum show in the US (Ernst’s portrait of Dominique, done when he was still an unknown artist in Paris, hangs in the first room of the Menil Collection to this day). 

The collection reflects their diverse and eclectic tastes, encompassing everything from Surrealism to Pop Art to ancient artworks from Africa and Oceania. From Magritte to Man Ray, Henri Matisse to Joan Miró, and from Hans Bellmer to Bruce Davidson, the Menil Collection, which became a museum in 1987, rivals any private art collection across the country. In a city that is notoriously concrete and sprawling, its campus is a cool and calm patch of green space in the heart of Montrose, a walkable neighborhood humming with the trill of cicadas and the chirps of grackles. In addition to its core collection, the campus is also home to the Menil Drawing Institute, the Cy Twombly Gallery, and the Dan Flavin Installation at Richmond Hall.

Dan Flavin Installation at Richmond Hall. Photo by Sarah Hobson

The Menil Collection is notably abutted by the Rothko Chapel, a nondenominational worship space featuring fourteen Rothko murals rendered in solemn purples and blacks that were characteristic of the artist’s final years before his death. Initially intended for the Catholic University of Saint Thomas, the church’s streamlined result, with its octagonal structure and moody ambiance, was a little too modern for their taste and became a much more expansive space, serving as the backdrop for everything from human rights award ceremonies to a music video by Solange Knowles. The space, like much of Rothko’s work, possesses a timeless quality and a nearly endless capacity to encourage reflection, inward movement, and calm.

In any other city, it would be hard to match the Menil Collection, but the Museum of Fine Arts Houston (MFAH) is a standout, not just regionally, but globally. Stretching over three sunlight-filled buildings, the museum houses works from nearly every ancient, modern, and contemporary art luminary imaginable (really, I eventually gave up on taking notes after several pages listing iconic pieces from Impressionism to Surrealism to Pop Art and everything in between). 

James Turrell, Caper, Salmon to White Wedgework, 2000

Even the walkways between buildings are works of art. You can easily escape the humidity by stealing away between galleries in a luminous light tunnel designed by James Turrell. Patrons can pop between multiple immersive art exhibitions, including a Yayoi Kusama infinity room and the pulsating Chromosaturation MFA by Venezuelan artist Carlos Cruz-Diez, before tucking in for a Michelin-starred lunch courtesy of chef Alain Verzeroli at Le Jardinier, the museum’s fine dining alcove, which overlooks a sculpture garden created by Isamu Noguchi.

Yayoi Kusama, Aftermath of Obliteration of Eternity, 2009. Courtesy of the museum and Yayoi Kusama

Just a two-minute walk away is the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston. Currently on view until March 29, 2026, is Across the Universe, by Houston-born artist Tomashi Jackson. Rooted firmly in archival and historical research, Jackson excavates the troubled histories of democracy, exclusion, and law in the South. Incorporating a wide range of techniques across painting, printmaking, fiber art, and sculpture, she employs juxtapositions of color and material such as dust from Greek marble quarries, voting pamphlets, and river soil to interrogate the calcified layers of history. In 2026, the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston will host a four-decade-long survey of conceptual artist Mary Ellen Carroll.

The Menil Collection, main building galleries. Photo by Hung Truong

Despite the institutional dominance in the city, Houston is also home to one of the most innovative art residencies in the country: Project Row Houses. Founded by a small collective of Black artists and community leaders and helmed by MacArthur Genius Award winner Rick Lowe, the logic of Project Row Houses is simple: strong communities and great artwork are only possible when people’s basic needs are met. Lowe and his collaborators restored thirty-nine shotgun houses in Houston’s Ward back in the ’90s. They award fellowships to artists who live and work in nine of the houses for a period of one year. Tomashi Jackson had a formative fellowship there, as did Sam Durant and Whitfield Lovell. Beyond the residencies, Project Row Houses offers a residential program for young single mothers, after-school programs, and entrepreneurship programs to encourage Black-owned businesses. The entire enterprise is what Lowe calls “social sculpture,” an artistic practice that’s inextricable from political action and community engagement.

A new generation of artists and community organizers has taken up this mantle, including Amarie Gipson, founder of The Reading Room. This hybrid space combines a library, community center, and art gallery. The Reading Room celebrates Black visual culture in all its forms, from art and design monographs to film screenings to community conversations. It includes everything from literary salons devoted to Octavia E. Butler to documentaries on West African cultural repatriation.

Other fixtures, like Adam Marnie, are making waves in the independent publishing world with F Magazine and its accompanying art gallery and indie publishing house, also called F. The gallery has showcased Houston contemporary art stalwart Mark Flood and even collaborated on a sprawling monograph titled The Origin of Mark Flood (2022). Marnie’s wife, Rebecca Matalon, is a curator at the Contemporary Arts Museum, where she is currently working on the Mary Ellen Carroll retrospective.

Meanwhile, lovers of outsider art have no shortage of things to explore. There’s the Orange Show, a carnivalesque fever dream devoted to the restorative power of citrus, created by postman Jeff McKissack in 1956. Or there’s the Beer Can House, a folk art installation created in the late ’60s by John Milkovisch, who adorned the exterior of his home with flattened beer cans and caps. Why? “I got sick of mowing the grass,” he once said.

Houston is a town of endurance. In a city beset by extreme weather and perpetual change, the art that crops up around the city is a testament to the creativity of Houstonians. As Untitled Art Houston approaches in the fall, it’s important to remember John de Menil’s response to a New York friend who once decried Houston as a cultural wasteland.

“It’s in the desert that miracles happen.”

The Menil Collection, Allora & Calzadilla's Graft. Photo by Caroline Phillipone

Stitched in Place: Do Ho Suh at the Tate Modern

The Genesis Exhibition Do Ho Suh at Tate Modern © Tate Photography (Jai Monaghan)

text by Poppy Baring

Do Ho Suh’s first major London exhibition at the Tate Modern showcases decades of his work that touches on themes that bring the importance of home back into audiences’ hearts. The title of the exhibition Walk The House derives from the Korean expression Hanok regarding a traditional house that can be packed up, transported and re-assembled across space and time. Originally from Seoul and now living in London, Suh has lived and worked across many continents. Walk The House involves impressive ghostly fabric structures, time-worn graphite rubbings, and intricate drawings that are to be experienced physically but also ask viewers to look introspectively at their own inner worlds.

The overwhelming size of some of these works contrasts against meticulous drawings and delicate watercolors and while the former risks overshadowing the latter, this contrast is precisely the point. By juxtaposing the grand with the intricate, Suh shows that memory does not exist at a single scale. We remember our homes and their rooms, while also holding onto the small elements that fill them. Perfect Home: London, Horsham, New York, Berlin, Providence, Seoul 2024, presented for the first time, demonstrates this well and is at the heart of this emotional experience. Here, Do Ho Suh outlines his current home and partners this with architectural features from previous spaces he and his family have inhabited. 

Rubbing/Loving Project: Seoul Home, 2013–2022 is the first and one of the most powerful works exhibited. Newly reconstructed but made over several months, the large-scale wall installation was created using a practice which in itself is meditative. The artist’s childhood home was covered with Hanji (mulberry paper) and gently rubbed with graphite capturing its structure and all its blemishes, which were enhanced by the elements the paper was left exposed to. This process mirrors how we recall our own homes—not as exact images, but through textures, sensations, and fragments of detail.

Do Ho Suh Nests, 2024. Courtesy the Artist and Lehmann Maupin New York, Seoul and London and Victoria Miro. Photography by Jeon Taeg Su © Do Ho Suh

Visitors continue to move through the colorful corridors of Nests, 2024, where Suh stitches together rooms, hallways, and entryways from buildings in Seoul, New York, London, and Berlin. These liminal spaces, often passed through without thought, become the focus, transformed into a fluid architecture that defies the logic of solid buildings. These in-betweens embody the shifting nature of memory and migration, like walking through the echo of a home that never fully was, but somehow feels known.

Suh’s films: Robin Hood Gardens, 2018 and Dong In Apartments, 2022, underscore the ever-changing layout of cities like London and Daegu. They show built environments as malleable living things that continue to be loved, destroyed, rebuilt and changed alongside the rest of us. This rich and colorful exhibition and the themes it touches on are as relevant as they have ever been with pieces reflecting on how political unrest coat our memories of time and space. Home is something to be reminded of and while some reviews have suggested the exhibition feels overcrowded, perhaps that is not far off from most people’s lived experience of where and how they live their lives.

The Genesis Exhibition: Do Ho Suh: Walk the House is on view through October 19th 2025 at the Tate Modern, Bankside, SE1 9TG.

Design, Desert, and the Art of Slowing Down: A Family Stay At The Desert Wave House

text by Oliver Kupper

We packed the car and headed to Palm Desert to stay at the Desert Wave House, a mid-century modern dreamscape nestled among the palms and rock formations. It was one of those family getaways that somehow managed to be both restful and quietly transformative—a pause, a breath. And, thanks to a new collaboration with Design Within Reach and Boutique Homes, it became something else too: a design-lover’s immersion, curated down to the very last detail.

It’s the first time Design Within Reach has offered this kind of experience—a full takeover of a private architectural home, styled with furniture pieces from the Paul Smith Collection, which merges iconic pieces from DWR’s roster with the legendary British designer and fabrics textiles developed with Maharam. And you can feel that intention the moment you step inside. It’s not just staged to be photographed—it’s designed to be lived in.

The Desert Wave House, designed in the 1950s by Walter S. White, is almost unreal in its beauty. From the road, it ripples into view like a mirage—low-slung, curvilinear, with its signature undulating roofline that echoes the nearby Santa Rosa Mountains. Inside, the architecture feels elemental. Soft light pours through clerestory windows, bouncing across poured across uncovered original terrazzo floors. But what makes the space sing right now is the way Design Within Reach has layered in warmth and ease—simple lines, beautiful textures, tactile materials. We arrived midafternoon and immediately dropped our bags. The house gently asks you to slow down.

One of my favorite rooms is the living room, with a vinyl record player—yes, a real one—which sat on a credenza stocked with records. We put on Miles Davis while making breakfast and then later flipped to Fleetwood Mac as the sun dipped low. It sounds like a small thing, but those musical moments grounded the day. There’s something so physical and present about putting a record on and letting the crackle warm the room.

And then, of course, there’s the pool. A sparkling, perfectly proportioned pool with views out to mountains. We spent hours floating and watching shadows stretch across the patio. Design Within Reach had furnished the outdoor space with low-slung loungers, architectural umbrellas, and side tables made for lemonade (or spritzes, depending on the hour). In the evenings, we watched the sky go pink, then purple, then absolutely star-splattered.

What struck me most was how seamless everything felt—not just the interiors, but the experience of being in the house. The kitchen was stocked with beautiful tableware; the bedrooms had DWR linens so soft they might as well have been washed a hundred times. Every corner was photogenic—but also intuitive and functional. It’s not easy to create a space that feels elevated and effortless. But they did.

This partnership between Design Within Reach and the Desert Wave House feels like something new. Not just a showroom in situ, but a lived-in, emotionally resonant experience of what good design can actually do. How it can set a tone. Encourage rest. Invite connection. For years, DWR has been synonymous with accessible modern design—you walk into their stores and can imagine these pieces in your own home. But this collaboration takes that idea a step further. It asks: What happens if you let people live inside the fantasy for a few days? The answer is: you come away inspired.

For our family, it was more than just a stylish weekend. It was a memory—of barefoot breakfasts and shared swims, of design conversations. It was time spent inside a space that reminded us how much atmosphere matters. How much the way a room feels shapes the way you show up in it.

We left reluctantly, peeling ourselves away from the sun-drenched terrace and carefully repacking our half-read books and damp swimsuits. But we also left with ideas. About what it means to create a beautiful, functional home. About the joy of a well-balanced chair. About the luxury of slowing down enough to notice details.

It’s rare that a branded experience actually sticks—that it feels like more than a surface-level showcase. But this one did. The Desert Wave House wasn’t just beautifully curated—it was generous, lived-in, soulful. It reminded us that good design doesn’t shout. It whispers. It nudges. It opens up space for presence.

The experience can be booked until August 31st here.

Telfar Celebrates Its 20th Anniversary Not With Spectacle But With Substance

Two decades after its quiet beginnings in Queens, Telfar turned the streets of New York into a runway and the community into the main event. This was not just a fashion show; it was a reminder that independence, creativity, and cultural impact are what fashion is all about.

Courtesy of Jason Nocito

What began twenty years ago in a Queens apartment by a teenage Telfar Clemens has evolved into the largest Black-owned fashion brand in the world, and likely the longest-running genderless brand in history. The brand has charted its own path entirely, remaining 100% independent, without investors and little entanglement with the fashion industry. Yet, with its captivating DNA, Telfar managed to build a loyal following of over three million customers along the way.

Telfar has long stood out as a brand that simply gets it right. It’s visionary, equitable, and deeply in tune with its audience. From the beginning, it gained a loyal community drawn to its commitment to cultural storytelling, accessible pricing, and customer-first values. This integrity helped elevate the iconic “T” bag into one of the most sought-after accessories of the past decade, carried by A-listers and aspirational shoppers alike.

Over the weekend, following a five-year hiatus, Clemens took to the streets of New York City to make his return to the runway.

 

Courtesy of Telfar

 

At the show, the support and love were undeniable. Fans, friends, family, and industry insiders all came crowding to the street behind the Telfar store, fittingly on Juneteenth weekend. Among them were familiar faces like Luar’s Raul Lopez and Solange Knowles, who’s often cited as the one who promoted the brand in its early years. Her sister, Beyoncé echoed that same support in her 2022 Renaisssance album, closing it with a shoutout to the brand: “This Telfar bag imported, Birkins them shit’s in storage,” encapsulating everything the brand is all about.

As always, Telfar did things their own way. Instead of a traditional runway cast, the show featured people directly from the brand’s community. Through a series of open castings at the Telfar store called New Models, anyone could take part. The final lineup was chosen not by insiders but by the public, who voted live during the first episode of New Models, streamed on Telfar’s own platform on June 19. Friends, family, and longtime collaborators all walked the show, making it a true celebration of the people who have shaped the brand.

Telfar’s Spring/Summer 2025 collection was a bold celebration of community and creativity, and every look was met with cheers and applause. It opened with reimagined suiting and shirting, crafted from deconstructed jersey T-shirts that honored the brand’s twenty-year history. Loose-fitting jackets, flared trousers, and relaxed silhouettes offered a fresh take on fashion staples; easy streetwear, and polished tailoring—echoing the brand’s ability to capture New York’s forward-looking vibe. The collection continued with khaki in tones of beige, black, and camo as a foundation, denim spanning vintage to futuristic rib knit dresses, and logo jelly sandals in various colors, just in time for the minimalist footwear wave.

Courtesy of Jason Nocito

Accessories took center stage as much as the clothing did, proving once more why Telfar changed the way the industry thinks about “it” bags. The debut of the Tie Bag—an evolution of the Telfar shopper as a slouchy hobo tote—is available in three colors and one perfect size. Of course, the legendary Shopping Bag was also present in spirit, reminding everyone just how Telfar became the brand known as Bushwick Birkin. Together, these pieces underscored Telfar’s core message that quality design and cultural resonance need not break the bank.

Twenty years in, Telfar has proven that good things are worth the wait. The fashion industry constantly demands speed and instant reinvention, often leaving creatives forced to accumulate. But Telfar Clemens has built an empire that allows him to listen to a slower, more authentic rhythm, and he understands the value of risk in fashion. As he celebrates the brand’s platinum anniversary, it’s never been more clear that Clemens is still winning the game, with rules he made himself.

Autre "Desire" Issue Launch and Signing With Mia Khalifa and Nick Sethi At Dover Street Market Paris

A queue snaked around Rei Kawakubo’s transportive forest installation all the way to the streets of Le Marais for Mia Khalifa and Nick Sethi at Dover Street Market Paris’ Rose Bakery. Photographs by Oliver Kupper

Read Our Interview of Matthieu Humery, Curator of Diane Arbus' Constellation @ The Armory →

Diane Arbus, Constellation, 2023–2024, The Tower, Main Gallery, LUMA Arles, France. All artworks © The Estate of Diane Arbus Collection Maja Hoffmann/LUMA Foundation. Installation Photo © Adrian Deweerdt

Diane Arbus’s photography has long unsettled and fascinated viewers, defying easy interpretation. In Constellation, the newly opened exhibition at The Armory, curator Matthieu Humery brings a second life to her work; not to explain or categorize, but to invite quiet, intimate dialogue between the viewer and the photographs. Featuring 454 photographs from the artist’s archive, including many rarely seen, the exhibition defers any chronological or thematic structure, favoring a layout without linear direction, making every encounter entirely unique and unpredictable. The experience is haunting, dissociating the viewer from the fact that they’re in an art show, and instead allowing them to sink into provoked emotions, completely immersed in an entirely human experience, dissolving the distance between audience and the subjects.

In our conversation, Humery shares what it means to curate with restraint, how working with a posthumous body of work introduces both freedom and distance and what it felt like to place each image by hand in the space, listening for their rhythm. Read more

Read Our Interview of Chef Walid Sahed and Designer José Lamali of BARBARE, A Multidisciplinary Artistic Project @ the Hôtel Grand Amour in Paris →

From June 26 to 28, 2025, chef Walid Sahed and fashion designer José Lamali present BARBARE, a multidisciplinary artistic project at the Book Bar in the Hôtel Grand Amour in Paris. Blending fashion, food, and storytelling, BARBARE is a three-night celebration of the duo’s shared Amazigh heritage—an intimate encounter between tradition and contemporary expression. The project was born from a dialogue between two creative practices: the kitchen and the atelier. For Walid Sahed, cooking is a deeply human act, shaped by memory, migration, and material. Born in Algiers and raised in Pantin, Sahed is the founder of the beloved neighborhood restaurant Les Pantins. His journey has taken him from the kitchens of the Stafford Hotel in London and Le Bristol in Paris to far-flung kitchens in Melbourne and Delhi, experiences that inform his generous, worldly, and emotionally resonant cuisine. Grounded in French culinary craft and open to global influences, Sahed creates food that speaks of belonging and transformation. José Lamali, co-founder of the fashion-art label Études Studio and current artistic director of Aigle, brings a parallel sensitivity to material, memory, and reinvention. A Franco-Moroccan designer whose practice began with secondhand clothing, Lamali’s work blends urban aesthetics with minimal structure and conceptual depth. Over the past decade, he has redefined French fashion through more than 20 Paris Fashion Week shows and, more recently, through his leadership at Aigle—where he has reimagined the brand’s outdoor heritage with a focus on sustainability and transmission. A recent foray into culinary studies marks his growing interest in the sensorial and ritual aspects of creation. Together, Sahed and Lamali have imagined BARBARE as a living installation—where traditional Berber flavors, garments, gestures, and stories unfold in a contemporary setting. The evenings will feature a menu inspired by North African cuisine, including mechouia salad, a light chicken tajine, and other seasonal dishes. Guests are invited to share in an immersive experience that honors the past while celebrating transformation, hybridity, and cultural resilience. BARBARE is not only a tribute to Amazigh identity—it is a space of exchange, warmth, and creation where roots become routes, and where tradition and modernity meet at the table. Read more.

Listen to Four Exclusive Playlists From A.G. Cook, Bar Italia, and More, Inspired by Alexander McQueen

The iconic brand convened a who’s-who of modern British music in four cozy listening sessions at their flagship London store.

Image courtesy of Alexander McQueen

text by Maisie McDermid

From ’80s godparents of goth rock Siouxsie and the Banshees to electroclash feminist Peaches to mercurial IBM auteur Aphex Twin, Alexander McQueen’s runway shows have always been soundtracked by music on the cutting edge. Just as Lee McQueen knew how to build a whole world from a collection of garments, a set, and a soundtrack, contemporary fashion labels are no longer content with simply being looked at or purchased; they want to be experienced.

Last Thursday, Alexander McQueen hosted four listening sessions over eight days with A.G. Cook, Bar Italia, John Glacier, and Nilüfer Yanya at their flagship location in London, the latest in a growing trend of high fashion labels merging music and style in intimate settings. Curated by creative director Seán McGirr, the musicians chatted about their influences and style with four influential musickers: editor of EPOCH Francesca Gavin, indie label founder Cyrus Goberville, NTS Radio founder Femi Adeyemi, and creative strategist Cynthia Igbokwe.

These listening spaces mine a common line between music and fashion: inspiration. Within the room walled by mirrors, some of London’s most innovative young musicians explored why and how they create. “We made music together because there was nothing else to do,” said vocalist Jehzmi Femi about the band’s beginning in 2019. “So you’re a lockdown band,” joked Cyrus Goberville.

Notorious genre blender A.G. Cook—whose mega-sized solo albums 7G, Apple, and Brit Pop draw on everything from ’90s Europop to garage rock to nightcore to hushed acoustic songwriting—had a typically omnivorous take: “That’s the thing that I like about music in general: not just the layers, but the slight sense of time travel I get hearing this. The details of it, unnecessarily going that extra step…. It’s what we’re gonna do now, not in terms of genre, but in terms of extra effort and weirdness,” Cook said, rocking an oversized, baby blue Alexander McQueen button down.

Between musings, artists played out their own personal soundtracks from classic love songs like “In My Life” by the Beatles to post-punk freak-outs like “Hypnotize” by Scritti Polliti. Check out playlists from Cook, Bar Italia, and more below.

Autre Desire Issue Dinner Celebrating Vaginal Davis at The Golden Phoenix Inside The Provocateur Hotel In Berlin

Following a signing event at Voo Store to celebrate Autre magazine’s SS25 Desire issue, a private dinner was held for Vaginal Davis at The Golden Phoenix, located inside the Provocateur Hotel in Berlin. The dinner was organized by Autre magazine and brought together a small group of invited guests, including artists, writers, curators, and members of Berlin’s queer creative community. The atmosphere was informal and intimate. photographs by Oliver Kupper

Read our Interview of Phoebe Bor and Sam Macer: A Conversation between Two Young British Designers →

Phoebe and Sam, 2025. Photographed by Luke Soteriou in London.

Despite the oh-so-competitive fashion industry and the unpredictable nature of the creative job market, young designers Sam Macer and Phoebe Bor demonstrate that there are many different ways to achieve results in this turbulent world. Both designers, who have been friends for several years, have forged their own way and achieved great success. Bor, who has recently graduated from Central Saint Martins (CSM) and is currently experiencing all the attention that comes from an outstanding degree collection, discusses her experience of university, her inspirations, and how she feels about the industry that awaits her.

Sam Macer, who completed the Central Saint Martins foundation course alongside Phoebe, was not accepted into the undergraduate degree program. However, before finishing his year of studying, his final project, which was a beautiful performance piece involving setting a skirt on fire and letting it burn, received a lot of online attention, giving him the platform to grow on his own. Five years down the line, Macer has dressed stars such as Rosalía, Julia Fox, and SZA. 

Both artists discuss their experiences in a way that only friends can. They have a very candid conversation concerning the pros and cons of the type of environment somewhere like CSM creates, their different ways of working and how they have, and continue to remain inspired and authentic. They provide great insight into what it’s like being a young designer; whether you’re just entering the industry or already fully immersed. Read more.