It can feel a little trite attempting to parse trends in design. Design is a slower industry than fashion, and developments tend to be more gradual, with incremental change from year-to-year. This is why we talk about decades having a readable person

The presence of Formafantasma within the design industry reached levels of near-ubiquity in 2024. Cynics might say the breadth of their involvement demonstrates a lack of courage and imagination on behalf of brands. We heartily object. The rigour and

For all the variety there is among the restaurants of the world, the experience remains, at its core, almost always the same: eat in one space, with food dictated by one chef and a menu that, even if it rotates, adheres to a particular style. So Luca

A revered shapeshifter, Crawford set up her London-based practice Studioilse in 2003, and was the founding principal of Design Academy Eindhoven’s Man and Wellbeing department, which she headed up for two decades. On page 122, she tells us, ‘The comm

There was a feeling of circularity to Anthony Vaccarello’s S/S25 show for Saint Laurent, held at its Left Bank HQ for the first time since the Belgian designer staged his debut there eight years ago. Vaccarello has proved increasingly adept at transl

From verdant lettuce leaves to radiant radishes, Loewe’s A/W24 womenswear collection featured a veritable cornucopia of produce, reimagined in cloth and intricately decorated with tiny, hand-stitched caviar beads. Designer Jonathan Anderson was in pa

‘The time has come to reimagine skeletal voids and envision new futures within them,’ says Dominique Petit-Frère, co-founder of Limbo Accra. Over the past six years, the spatial design studio has built a compelling portfolio centred on researching, a

A good armchair, we feel, is one that balances crisp elegance as a sculptural object with the feeling of a good hug when in use, and Japanese designer Fumie Shibata’s debut creation for Flexform is a standout example. Inspired by the uplifted lapels

A master of raw forms, the late JB Blunk sculpted primarily in wood and ceramicfor works that took their cue from salvaged natural materials. It was an organic philosophy that extended to the jewellery Blunk enjoyed creating for his family and friend

Ours is the most well-travelled generation in history. So much so that the industry is reported to be worth $11.1 trillion, with 790 million of us packing our suitcases to go galavanting in the first seven months of 2024 alone. More than 2.5 million

After the pink moondust has settled and the reactionary howls have tailed away, what to make of Jaguar’s Type 00 concept? Is it the most finely crafted piece of comment-bait ever created? That’s undeniable, given the scale of the pile-on from social

The first thing you notice as you approach Kasper 7 – an oyster white, 57m-long B Yond yacht by luxury Italian shipbuilder Benetti – are a pair of massive round portholes on the main deck. In a nod to some of Benetti’s historic vessels, such as the 1

Across great swathes of the creative industries, there’s a feeling that AI is to innovation as a simmering pan of water is to the future well-being of a frog. We’re being slow-boiled from the inside, all in the name of new tools, faster shortcuts and

Deliberating on how we might encapsulate the year in design for our cover, we quickly settled upon the joyfully imaginative work of Isabel + Helen. Isabel Gibson and Helen Chesner met while studying at Chelsea College of Arts and, since graduating in

While artists have long worked at the intersection of theatre, fashion, performance, activism and film, to name a few mediums, it’s a cultural shapeshifting that is often sidestepped by the traditional exhibition format. Recently, however, as fluidit

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The popularity of mycelium as a biomaterial ripe for exploratory application continued apace in 2024. From luxury houses to student shows, from packaging and clothing to building materials, it feels like our future may well be fungal. While the self-

We are delighted with the prevalence of texture and tactility in material surfaces of late. In place of veneers, coatings and treatments that divorce the sensorial experience between hand and eye, we welcome the return of natural materials bearing th

p132 SPACE ODYSSEY Epic explorations of the interior realm p146 THE POWER OF WOW The runaway runway winners of 2024 p162 PULLING SENSATION A design duo’s moving cover story■

Since we’re in Italy, let’s start in the kitchen. This particular kitchen has around 60,000 recipes, but rather than whipping up ragù, this is where Stone Island’s impressive range of fabric colours are cooked up. The brand might be best known for it

As reissue stories go, the ‘Spherical’ bed is an award-winning fairy tale of design, because it celebrates both the past and the future in one fell swoop. Originally designed by Kaare Klint, the single bed was presented in 1938 at the Danish Cabinetm

Iceland is entering a new eruptive era. Since 2021, heightened volcanic activity around the Reykjanes Peninsula has sent lava flows spilling across the landscape, creating fields of thick black crust as they cool. For most Icelanders, it’s a part of

Last June, British designer Craig Green opened up his London studio to show his latest collection after a two-year absence from the runway. He admitted that such an intimate show was scary – ‘it’s like someone painting a runway through your house,’ h

The anniversary of a watch’s debut is often marked with an impressive new release, ably demonstrating the brand’s technical progression since the original’s launch. Lately though, a slew of brands have come full circle and returned to consider the fo

It feels as if 2024 was a year of reassessment. In fact, the prefix ‘re’ seems to have popped up in project descriptions and initiatives the world over, with architects rethinking, restructuring, refitting and reimagining, aiming to restore, rebalanc

Welcome to our annual Design Awards issue, a fixture of our editorial calendar (this is its 21st year), but also, increasingly, a hugely valuable, time-stamped appraisal of the very best the world has to offer in terms of fashion, technology, archite

Maison Margiela’s triumphant Artisanal 2024 show in Paris saw creative director John Galliano present fashion as an unadulterated spectacle, with a collection that moved some of the audience to tears. Every great designer needs a team of equally pion

In the six weeks following the June launch of Charli XCX’s Brat, the campaign behind the album achieved cultural ubiquity. It became a hot topic among a public who, until that point, had likely barely heard of the singer. The pivot from fan bubble to

This remarkable stove-top espresso maker takes its name from the ‘anticline’ geological formation, whereby molten rock rises and cools leaving undulating layers, and we love that it also mimics the rise and fall of water as it becomes coffee in the a