Fantastic Frieze London

Pioneering Portuguese artist Joana Vasconcelos has a propensity to reimagine the everyday with bold, larger-than-life expressions, famously once turning tampons into a chandelier, and metal pots into a pair of monumental high-heeled shoes. ‘You can only do a great project when you find the right place: a museum, a location, or a client,’ Vasconcelos once told us. For her latest commission, she found the latter two of those in the New York apartment of Randi Charno Levine, the former US ambassador to Portugal, set within a BIG-designed tower in West Chelsea, with interiors by Kelly Behun.

Levine worked closely with Behun to ensure the space was ‘beautiful, but also functional and comfortable for both entertaining and living’, and also accommodated her art collection, gathered over decades and featuring significant pieces by the likes of Tschabalala Self, Jenny Holzer, Cecily Brown and Hank Willis Thomas.

But when it came to the loggia, with far-reaching views across Manhattan, Levine saw it as an opportunity to commission one of her favourite artists to intervene in the space. Rosa Bertoli tours the spectacular results.

You may still be curating your autumn wardrobe, but the Wallpaper* fashion team, recently returned from the S/S 2027 shows, are here to give us the heads up on what we’ll be wearing next spring.

An intuitive style ran through the collections of the S/S 2027 season, seeing designers embrace eclectic combinations to reflect the ‘multiple perspectives and perpetual motion of all our lives’, as British designer Sarah Burton described, referring to her latest collection for Givenchy. Nowhere was this more true than in accessories: across New York, London, Milan and Paris, designers used bags, shoes, hats, belts, and even boas, to express this liberated approach to dress. Here, Jack Moss and India Jarvis collate the season’s statement-making accessories – from Jil Sander’s inside-out handbags to rain hats at Chemena Kamali’s Chloé.

Now in its 18th edition, PAD London (on until 18 October) has us accustomed to its distinctive blend of collectible design, fine art, objects and jewellery. Uniting works by contemporary makers and creatives with historical pieces that represent some of the most celebrated design movements of the past, its eclectic curation attracts international collectors and those curious to see where collectible design is heading.

This year, we cast our lens on the new names to know in collectible design, creatives working in a variety of materials and techniques, merging personal cultural histories with ancestral craft, material research with formal experimentation. Meet Noe Kuremoto, whose clay objects speak of Japan’s ancestral traditions; Manuel Bano, passionate about the possibilities of copper; Adriana Meunié, whose large-scale weavings and tapestries appear like hairy mythical creatures; Seungjin Yang, in whose hands epoxy resin takes on balloon-like forms; and Lukas Wegwerth and Corinna Dehn, who have conceived furniture clad in shingles inspired by animal scales, wings and feathers.

When we heard about Swedish designer Gustaf Westman’s Disney collaboration, we were all ears. And so are the results, it turns out, including a bulbous, Mickey Mouse-inspired sofa, tumbler, and cup and saucer. ‘Mickey & Friends are built from very simple shapes and colours, yet everyone understands them. That fascinates me as a designer,’ Westman told us. The collection launches online on 15 November.