Lightning can and will strike the same place twice. Yet the bolts, an explosive expression of electricity breaking through ionized air, are always different, never forming exactly the same. The same is true for glass – the specific temperature, pressure, and formulation of form defines everything about a piece. The terroir in which the piece was made is infused within, delineating bubbles, texture, and the fine marks of making. Each slightly different, yet all adhering to the generous curvatures set forth, three lighting collections, by designer Anna Dawson – Ribbon, Dancer, and Twirl – delight in the strength and softness of glass, playing with transparency, hue, and symbolism.

Inspired by memories of ribbon dancing with her grandmother, the designer presented her lighting collection at ICFF this year, the warm glow of glass working double time against the glare of tradeshow lighting. Shielding her booth from errant rays with a protective ceiling and bathed in a rich burgundy, a distinct shift in temperature and tone creates an immersive feeling when interacting with the booth. In Twirl, shown below, the forms are grounded in the feeling of spinning in space.

Dawson’s work is infused with a biomimetic quality, organic curves meet the somewhat stoic quality of glass, continuing the conversation of the ancient art. The colors and transparency evoke a sense of calm, a warm seafoam green and deep burgundy illuminated beautifully from the inside.

The Ribbon collection features two similar forms, flat elements draped across each other, ribbons in repose. Just as impactful whether positioned up to the ceiling, for a diffused glow, or angled downward, for a more concentrated beam of light, the light olive and rich browns of the shades are completely transformed when lit, exuding a warmth and depth that glass simply couldn’t achieve alone.

Here, we explore the Dancer Collection – which comes in six colors, Sienna, Dark Amber, Cherry, Warm White, Golden Green, Artichoke, and Egyptian Blue. In Dancer Symmetrical, shown below, the form is characterized by a flowing, almost hourglass shape. This piece is illuminated both at the top and the bottom, allowing diffused light to flow outward, as well as cast a glow on to the walls above and below.

In Dancer Asymmetrical, the same principles stand, but with a twist. This river has a couple bends in the middle, the path of light reducing in size, and given a bit of a wiggle. The light is expertly balanced throughout the sconce, creating a multitude of sunset-like hues anywhere in the home.

From California but now based in Brooklyn, NY, Dawson believes that design sensitive to emotion should not be overlooked. Our innate wiring continues to be the same, century after century, and design as a whole has yet to come to terms with this reality. Fluidity and ease of movement is essential to her work, providing the platform on which to build meaning. She shares, “I’ve always felt that the design principle of form follows feeling was both an antithesis to function and services a real need. Feeling good is a function design can service!”

To learn more about lighting by Studio Anna Dawson, visit https://studioannadawson.com.

Photography courtesy of Anna Dawson.

A graphic line, a flush of color, a well-placed shadow. Much like the face, interiors can be sculpted, lifted, warmed, and transformed through one decisive gesture. With Season of Grandeur, Swedish rug brand Nordic Knots introduces three new colorways—Emerald, Sakura, and Pecan—that move its palette into richer, more expressive territory without abandoning the restraint that has long defined its visual language.

The collection is framed through beauty as metaphor, positioning color not as decoration alone, but as a defining act. A smoky eye becomes Emerald. A rosy cheek becomes Sakura. A bronzed glow becomes Pecan. Together, the trio suggests that interiors, like fashion and beauty, are increasingly understood through mood, gesture, and personal signature.

That framing gives interior design a language that feels immediately legible. Beauty has always been about small changes with outsized impact, and Nordic Knots translates that logic into the home, where a rug can operate as a chromatic foundation rather than a finishing touch. As Liza Laserow Berglund, Co-Founder and Creative Director of Nordic Knots, explains, the brand often thinks of rugs and textiles as “the foundation,” or even the “fourth wall” that sets the tone for a space.

The campaign’s visual metaphors also sharpen the distinction between grandeur and excess. While Season of Grandeur suggests opulence, Nordic Knots’ interpretation is carefully controlled. “For us, grandeur is never about excess. It’s about atmosphere,” Berglund says. Rather than chasing spectacle or trend, the palette leans into calibrated richness: tempered colors with generous pigment payoff.

Emerald is the most cinematic of the three, a deep, jewel-toned green with a cool undertone — “the interior version of a perfect smoky eye.” It brings the depth of a midnight garden indoors, pairing naturally with dark wood, smoky bronze, blackened steel, and absinthe-adjacent greens. The effect is lush but not heavy, a color that understands drama as atmosphere rather than volume. In fashion terms, it is velvet after dark; in beauty terms, it is the eye that defines the whole look.

Sakura, meanwhile, resists the sweetness often attached to pink. Nordic Knots calls it “not your usual pink,” a blush with bite that favors fresh bloom over budding romance. Its styling notes — black leather, lacquered furniture, northern woods, polished metals — place it closer to runway contrast than nursery softness. Sakura is less powder puff than editorial cheek color: a tonal disruption that makes the rest of the room feel more alert.

Then there is Pecan, the palette’s warmest note: a radiant brown positioned as the bronzer equivalent for the home. Inspired by vintage wood, well-worn leather, and heirlooms that have absorbed time rather than performed nostalgia, Pecan carries a golden cast that warms without overwhelming. Its almost liquid luster makes the case that opulence does not always need shine or volume. Sometimes it is simply the right undertone, applied in the right place.

What makes the launch compelling is the way Nordic Knots communicates each product. By borrowing from the mechanics of beauty, the brand gives interiors a more intimate, embodied vocabulary. A room is not merely styled; a rug does not simply match the sofa. It sets the complexion of the entire space. That language places Nordic Knots within a broader cultural shift in which fashion, beauty, and interiors move beyond aesthetics and into psychology. People are no longer designing rooms solely to look composed. They are designing them to feel inhabited, expressive, and emotionally tuned.

Berglund sees this as part of a longer design evolution rather than a reaction to minimalism. “It’s not about leaving minimalism behind, but about enriching it,” she says, noting that the season adds depth and radiance while maintaining balance and control. That distinction matters. Season of Grandeur gives minimalist interiors pigment, pulse, and dimensionality.

To learn more about the storied Scandinavian brand, visit nordicknots.com.

Campaign images courtesy of Nordic Knots with lifestyle by Anders Kylberg.

As our modern world becomes less and less tactile in favor of a larger, omnipresent digital expanse, the design community has a duty to respond to the changing tides. Celebrating certain reflections of reality, Misewell debuted its latest lighting collection at ICFF this year, leaning into striking shapes and inspired glazes, all with distinct moments of textural delight.

Above, the Ripple III Pendant is drenched in charcoal chrome, picking up and reflecting light from around the room. Below, a similar form is translated to the wall in the Ripple Bowl Sconce, evoking warm, circular pools of light, like moonlight on a still pond.

As we move around the piece, each part is lit differently, creating a subtle yet distinctive view for the viewer alone. Even the smallest shift in angle reveals new tones, light, materiality, and perception, all coming together as one.

A smart study in proportion and principle, each Q Triple Sconce is handmade in Misewell’s own studio in Milwaukee or sourced from artisans across the United States. A triple take on the Q Sconce, three globes sit in regular succession, grounded in space by a ceramic body. An inner flange slightly encases the globes, while they sit on a larger outer ledge, a rounded capsule footprint taking hold on the wall.

Each Corduroy Table Lamp is unique, born of a hand-wrought finish that emulates the luxurious ridges of corduroy fabric. Sculptural and fluid, two bands are bisected, allowing a warm glow to emanate through the opening onto the table. A distinct feeling of hidden flame allows this piece to exist somewhere between modern and monolithic, a testament to the ubiquity of the design.

Below, the Fin Table Lamp takes up space, but in a compact manner. Fins interact in regular intervals, fanning out across an invisible, projected boundary. An abstracted wooden turbine, the piece satisfies the eye’s craving for pattern, especially within the home. Soft light exudes from slits directly next to the diffused light source, casting a glow that extends across the fins and lands gently on the table below. When not in use, the lamp becomes a sculptural object, a celebration of form and function in equal measure.

Misewell was founded on the belief that lighting should do more than illuminate the home; it should return some measure of tactility, warmth, and presence to daily life. Brothers Vincent and Paul Georgeson approach safety, sustainability, and quality as integral parts of the design process, crafting lighting and home accessories that invite touch before settling into the regular rhythm of a room.

As the brand expands into new objects, that language becomes even more cohesive: an immediately recognizable interior vocabulary for a world increasingly mediated by screens, and a reminder that the most lasting objects are often the ones that bring us back to material, texture, and use.

To learn more about lighting by Misewell, visit misewell.com.

Photography courtesy of Misewell.

With callbacks to subtle Art Deco flourishes all the rage in contemporary furniture design these past few years, age-old artisanal techniques like marquetry have cropped up in cleverly interpretive and narrative-driven applications. This approach introduces complementary, sometimes contrasting, materials into the surfaces of what are normally monolithic forms. These meticulously introduced details break up the monotony of rigid modernist designs while inlaying them into their resolutely uniform profiles. They imbue these otherwise nondescript objects with emotional resonance, as well as visually and viscerally enticing complexity.

Taking the revived marquetry trend a step further is the new Eva Collection, just released by New York-based luxury furniture brand Maiden Home. This fresh, limited-run offering sees adornment lightly rise above the surface of expertly crafted casework furnishings — oak and walnut armoires and sideboards. It takes the unexpected form of perfectly encased ceramic tiles, a finish usually found cladding bathrooms and kitchens, but rarely anything else.

Though there are a handful of companies that have elevated tile to the status of statement-piece novelty — promoting quality bespoke production, introducing striking colorways, and developing bold patterns — few have taken it out of its primary architectural application.

In the Eva Collection—Maiden Home’s second collective commission series—the carefully considered configuration of the geometric plates is not just decorative but also functional. They help indicate where otherwise seamlessly flush cabinet doors can be opened. It is a subtle nod to the virtues of honest assembly espoused by the late 19th-century Arts and Crafts movement. There is a sculptural logic behind the hand-cast tile meeting the wooden surface, perfectly anchored into place—almost like puzzle pieces—by gentle yet resolute framing.

“It’s not overly referential or reverential, however,” says Nidhi Kapur, Maiden Home founder. “Eva has a timeless quality but perhaps we need to find a better word to describe that quality. It’s not here, it’s not there. It stands on its own.”

“[All of] our work begins with material and the hands that shape it,” she adds. “These commission projects stem from our obsession with a particular material and craft. Eva grows out of ceramic, which has a real directness. Each tile is made by hand; you can see it. The geometric language of this collection came from pairing these elements against the precision of the wooden frames. Material against material; each one shaping the other.”

Released during NYCxDesign 2026, the Eva Collection was unveiled in a specially staged setting befitting the weight and refinement of its making. The moody, golden-hued installation played up the warmth of the seemingly disparate yet actually symbiotic materials incorporated.

To shop this and other furnishings from the brand, visit maidenhome.com.

Photography provided by Maiden Home.

Our world is defined by movement. Atoms, microbes, leaves in the wind – everything moves, even if we cannot always perceive it. Infusing static space with a sense of motion and style, Sara Schoenberger presents Coronette, a lighting collection that feels very distinctly like it is going places. Having made their debut at this year’s Afternoon Light, these pieces present a compelling dialogue between trajectory, modernity, ornament, and fantasy.

As if ribbons were flickering through the air and carving their own lithe pathways, the Coronette collection features thick brass bars coaxed into fluid, sweeping curves. The gesture draws from a long decorative lineage: in Roman marble reliefs, garlands and ribbons frequently appeared as symbols of coronation ceremonies.

Here, however, Schoenberger reimagines those ribbons not as embellishment, but as the primary structure of the design. Each flick of metal sends a new bulb into the ether, regularized around a central axis and grounded by precise symmetry.

In Coronette 1, that axis is the bulb itself, casting a soft, almost theatrical glow onto the interior below. The hand-blown, mushroom-shaped glass is available in three colors: Opal, a light cream; Pistachio, a warm green that lifts toward yellow when illuminated; and Apricot, a warm, sunset orange. Three hand-applied metal finishes are also available: Waxed Brass, Pewter, and Verdigris. Together, the gradient glass and patinated metal lend the petite pendant warmth, richness, and a subtle sense of ceremony.

Coronette 3 focuses on the relationship between motion and stillness, extending outward from a central point in a compact burst of action. A lovely dichotomy between softness and steel, the patina built upon the metal frame gives the piece a sense of place, as if it has always been there. Its sweeping curves feel light and a bit “extra,” but never untethered.

Coronette 7 amps this playful exchange up to eleven, with six smaller globes surrounding the central, larger light. Two globes seem to flutter away above, lending the grand chandelier a vivid sense of liveliness. The result is ornamental without feeling fussy, theatrical without losing its structural clarity.

Growing up with a historic preservationist architect as a mother, Schoenberger developed a sensitivity to architectural ornament, ironwork, and ancient sculpture–references that remain central to her work. Balancing traditional techniques with modern manufacturing sensibilities, she brings each project forward with a considered approach, working across residences, galleries, and commercial spaces to help bring distinct visions to life.

What’s more, each iteration bolsters a broader argument for the merit of ornament as it has influenced technical and aesthetic function throughout history.

To learn more about the Coronette Collection by Sara Schoenberger, visit saraschoenberger.com.

Photography by Aaron Joel Santos and Karen Dias.

Not far from a busy corner of Los Angeles’ Silver Lake neighborhood, where traffic compresses and releases in a daily rhythm, a gem of a store can be found. Nestled in the back corner of an unassuming courtyard is the new space by Kimberly and Nancy Wu, the sisters behind Building Block. Nancy studied Transportation Design at ArtCenter—coincidentally alongside my brother—while Kimberly trained in footwear design in Italy. That split, systems and structure on one side, material and craft on the other, resolves cleanly in their work.

I came to know the brand indirectly. My sister-in-law carried a Building Block bag I couldn’t stop noticing each time she visited. The leather softened and darkened over time. It reminded me of a small leather pouch I use for pencils and pens, something handled daily and marked by use. I love how natural leather documents life. Like a marble countertop at a Parisian café, marked with glass rings and stains, it is not meant to be precious so much as to tell life’s story.

By the time I wanted my own bag, Building Block had already paused. For those who followed the brand, that 2023 pause marked the end of a distinct chapter. For over a decade, its collection of minimal leather forms, often punctuated by wood or rubber, was carried by a loyal, design-literate audience. The success was real, but never loud.

Building Block Etc., the new space, reads as a continuation, not a restart. I first visited while gathering sources for 2025’s Holiday Gift Guide for the Culinary Curious. The store is striking. You enter a calm, precise space where everything feels considered and nothing incidental. From their own designs to the curated collection, each object earns its place.

Kimberly describes the selection as intuitive: “Often they’re things we’ve lived with ourselves or from makers whose practices we deeply admire. We’re drawn to pieces that have clarity in material and form, a sense of utility, and the ability to reveal more over time.”

That sensibility is immediately felt. You want to pick things up, feel their weight, and trace their edges. The design language is consistent: reduced forms, direct materials, exacting decisions. Even the packaging they use to wrap purchases—pressed kraft bubble wrap and aluminum tape—extends the experience.

A cube-shaped stainless steel teapot from Japan: flat-bottomed, efficient, compact. A built-in strainer allows tea or coffee to be made directly inside, while fold-down handles collapse the form when not in use.

Glass tumblers and a carafe with rounded, bubble-like bases, hand-blown in North Carolina, balance delicacy with weight.

Their own objects follow the same logic. I was curious what came first: the product idea or the fabricator connection. Nancy describes the starting point not as a product brief, but as a feeling: “We’re interested in function, but mostly how something carries through everyday life, how it feels in the hand, how it occupies space, how it ages through use.”

From there, the maker becomes part of the design. “Finding the right fabricator or collaborator is an essential part of the process,” she adds. “The dialogue with the maker shapes the final object just as much as the original concept.”

Leather scalloped “biscuit” coasters and a trivet nod to their history in bags, translating that material language into the home. A cone-ridged stainless steel cup works across contexts: ice cream, olives, salt, small snacks.

Squiggle flatware introduces a controlled irregularity, subtle but enough to shift the table.

Individually, each piece is resolved. Together, they create a coherent environment, one that prioritizes use, touch, and longevity. It is the kind of store where gifting feels intentional, and buying for yourself feels equally justified. Without the pressure of seasonal output, the space reads less like retail and more like an open studio. Not everything is explained. Some of it is held back. That restraint is part of the appeal.

The store came before the website, intentionally. “So much of this project has been rooted in slowing down,” Kimberly explains. “We wanted people to encounter objects through touch, scale, material, and conversation.”

The digital presence followed as an extension of the same sensibility, not a separate identity. “We think about the website and the shop as connected environments,” she says, “both guided by restraint and a desire to let the objects speak clearly.”

On a stretch of road most Los Angeles Eastsiders drive daily, the store acts as a quiet interruption. You pass it more than once before you register it. Then, eventually, you stop. And for anyone beyond LA’s Eastside, the online shop is now open.

As someone who has paused and pivoted, the gesture is recognizable. Not reinvention, but recalibration. Slower, sharper, more deliberate.

To shop the new collection, visit bbetc.shop.

Photography courtesy of Building Block Etc.

There are plenty of cushions to choose from for our furry friends, like the round versions known as calming beds, designed to mimic a canine’s coat and serve as a place for nesting on the floor. Offered in a range of materials, from memory foam to polyester, these naptime essentials are comfortable for pets, but they lack style and are often mismatched with the rest of a home’s décor.

Hardman Design, the Brooklyn-based studio known for wood furnishings made by hand, introduced the LÜNA bed last fall as an addition to the original collection, which includes a side table, chair, bench, and more. The headboard features a gentle architectural curve that provides visual softness, and it is now a customer favorite.

Hardman Design co-owners Erika Hardman and husband Liam look to their own household for inspiration, which includes their dogs Mio and Lue, each a husky-labrador mix. They are cherished members of the family, with their own special toys and accessories. Yet these items have an aesthetic that is decidedly different from the main rooms of the residence. “We upgraded from one to another, but they were always disconnected from the rest of the interior, and they still very much looked like regular dog beds,” says Hardman.

As creative director of the company, Erika decided that a scaled down model of LÜNA would be a perfect fit for fur babies. As with all of Hardman Design’s signature furniture, this new dog bed is crafted from FSC-certified wood, available in European oak or walnut. Edges and corners are rounded for a sleek profile that is also safe. The proprietary slat system ensures support and promotes air circulation to keep bedding fresh.

The washable, water-resistant cushion features raised sides that provide comfort during slumber. The cover can be easily removed and changed, and is offered in a range of fabrics and colors. Users can order a custom bed, with any preferred wood or textile combination for true personalization.

Of course, Mio and Lue were quality assurance testers, as well as staff members’ large and small breed pups to get the proportions just right. Standard width sizes range from 23 to 35 inches, so there is plenty of room for a pooch or two to laze the day away. And the elevation gives pups a view of what’s happening around them while they are cocooned.

Introduced earlier this month, Hardman already has a few ideas for a pet food station, but for now she’s confident that this first dog bed will be utilized and cherished as much as the other Hardman Design offerings are, and which she gets a glimpse of via photos that customers share. “We love to see how these pieces become part of people’s lives,” she notes.

Studio photography by Serhii Savchenko. In situ photography by Fiona Walker-Arnott.

To shop this and other products by the brand, visit hardmandesign.com.

Doors have been considered symbolic portals for millennia: thresholds through which the unknown lies, where one condition gives way to another. The door is never just an opening; it is an arrival, a pause, a decision, a passage. Yet the hardware that mediates that moment is still too often treated as an architectural afterthought, specified late and noticed only when it fails. But Bankston has built its practice around a different premise, empathizing with every push, pull, press, and even jiggle.

The Australian architectural hardware brand understands that the first thing one usually does when entering a space is reach for a handle or knob. Before the eye has fully absorbed the room, before the body has crossed the threshold, the hand has already begun reading: texture, temperature, weight, resistance, proportion. Our brains are trained to gather information from these small sensations wherever we go. Delineating that experience is both the pressure and privilege of design. If we are to interact with something every day, it should feel as considered as it functions.

That idea formed the basis of A Manifesto on Touch, Bankston’s NYCxDESIGN Week presentation created in collaboration with independent design platform FOR SCALE. On May 13, Bankston and FOR SCALE took over Colbo wine bar on New York’s Lower East Side for an immersive evening that positioned architectural hardware not as an accessory to interiors, but as one of the most intimate ways we encounter them.

Central to the installation was the Touch Manifesto, a written provocation by editor, critic, and FOR SCALE founder David Michon, which reframed touch as a form of intelligence. “TOUCH ME is not what the handle begs,” the manifesto asserted, “it is how it performs.” Printed across the walls and hand-painted onto mirrors, its language surrounded guests with a reminder that sensation is design’s most essential mode of communication. In a culture increasingly mediated by screens, the exhibition made the case for physical contact as something urgently human.

Guests encountered hand photography, manifesto excerpts, and a series of custom interventions that invited them to engage and linger. Stools and tables fabricated by Caleb Engstrom were fitted with pieces from Bankston’s collaborative collections, including Super by Sans-Arc Studio and The Streaks by YSG Studio. Mirrors edged with CIVILIAN’s Hemispheres collection carried hand-painted manifesto quotes, while works from Casts by Edition Office appeared throughout the space, expanding the installation’s material and formal vocabulary. Taken together, the collections suggested the breadth of Bankston’s ambitions, treating hardware as small-scale design objects with architectural consequence.

Across its collaborative collections, Bankston treats hardware as a place where material intelligence, craftsmanship, and character meet. With Melbourne-based Edition Office, Casts uses traditional sand casting in raw bronze and aluminum to explore texture, patina, and expressive geometry; with Sans-Arc Studio, Super channels the visual exuberance of the 1960s Radical Design Movement through playful levers, pulls, and knobs; and with Brooklyn-based CIVILIAN, Hemispheres marked Bankston’s U.S. debut with a modular 12-piece collection combining architectural precision with materials such as American walnut, Potoro Gold marble, polished chrome, smooth nickel, and bone. The Streaks, created with Sydney-based YSG Studio and founder Yasmine Ghoniem, extends that ethos through timber and bronze pieces defined by bold striped banding, sustainably sourced materials, and handcrafted Australian production — hardware that feels ergonomic yet expressive, playful yet precise, and functional without surrendering its decorative force.

At Colbo, those objects were not isolated on plinths or distanced behind a gallery logic of looking. They were embedded into a functioning, social environment where the body could understand them. Even the printed manifesto became interactive, with visitors invited to tear strips from the poster: a rip as a kind of pull, a pull as a kind of handle, a handle as a gesture that collapses the distance between viewer and object.

This is where Bankston’s work feels especially resonant. Elevated hardware design is not simply about making small objects more beautiful, though Bankston does that with considerable finesse. It is about recognizing that the smallest architectural movements often carry the greatest intimacy. A hand closes around a lever. A thumb meets a groove. A palm registers cool metal, warm timber, or the subtle irregularity of a cast surface. A door opens. A body enters. The ritual is brief, but it is not insignificant.

Continue reading to view some of Bankston’s Core Collections…

Hemispheres by Civilian

The Streaks by YSG

The Streaks by YSG

The Streaks by YSG

The Streaks by YSG

The Streaks by YSG

Super Collection Zzzigurat and Futurismo by Sans-Arc

Super Collection Zzzigurat and Futurismo by Sans-Arc

Super Collection Futurismo by Sans-Arc

Super Collection Zzzigurat by Sans-Arc

To learn more about both parties and their shared ethos, visit bankston.com and forscale.substack.com.

Event Photography by Eloise Photography. Product photography courtesy of Bankston.

It was the early 19th-century architect and designer Augustus Pugin who called for an honest approach to material and construction in these respective fields: one that champions maintaining the imprint of assembly as a visible, even ornamental detail, and refutes additional inauthentic layering. In today’s world, general expectation demands that new products be fully polished and formally crystalline. It is rare to find objects that “honestly” wear evidence of their making.

With the new SEAM sconce collection, Australian boutique lighting brand Articolo has returned to this principle. Launched at its NoMad, Manhattan showroom, the new offering celebrates the imperfection of assembly as ornamentation.

The linear steel and brass luminaires carry the rough welds of their seamless assembly as a central flourish, either as an additional three-dimensional feature or as a sanded-down, squiggly-line, multi-tone motif. These integral interventions juxtapose the planar surfaces they connect and the rectilinear, architectonic cutaways filtering out diffused light. The especially tall and slender fixtures take on monumental proportions.

These two metals are chemically opposed, and their seamless fusing normally poses a significant technical challenge. Differences in melting points, thermal expansion, and zinc vaporization in brass can lead to instability and inconsistency. By allowing this coherence to remain messy, Articolo’s design team was able to develop a fresh solution. The proposition is very much the result of the brand and its fabricator partnering with equal say.

“The SEAM Collection is highly complex in its simplicity and reflects many iterations to achieve these works of art,” says Nicci Kavals, founder and principal. “The artisans we work with are highly skilled in their craft and are accustomed to us pushing materials beyond their perceived limits. Everything we do challenges our engineering, our materials, and what we are asking of our makers.”

To see this and other pieces by the brand, visit articolostudios.com.

Photography courtesy of Articolo Studios.

Silk is among the most temporally alive of materials. Woven into a fixed object, it continues to behave — shifting in tone and luminosity as light moves across it throughout the day, responding to the viewer’s angle in ways few other textiles can. That quality of perpetual, quiet change sits at the center of SVILA, Ana Kraš’s solo exhibition at Emma Scully Gallery, which opened May 7, 2026, and remains on view through June 13, 2026.

The exhibition takes its name from the Serbian word for silk and brings together SVILA Side Tables, Glass Coffee Tables, and Panel Lamps— each produced in two color variants. The collection is not about silk as decoration, but as a load-bearing material concept: something with structural and optical properties worth interrogating across different functional and sculptural object typologies. Known for an intuitive and tactile approach to design, Kraš considers how silk behaves in relation to wood, glass, and metal, allowing the material to shift from textile to atmosphere, surface, structure, and light.

In the Panel Lamps, woven silk diffuses light through its irregular weave structure, making its texture visible as a luminous field rather than a surface. In the Glass Coffee Tables, a reflective top layer frames the silk beneath, compressing depth while introducing gloss and shadow. The Side Tables expose the material most directly, without mediation, emphasizing its raw and tactile qualities. Across all three, the same material reads differently — soft, glowing, tactile, mutable — depending on what surrounds it.

The hand-carved wood components throughout the collection were produced using a traditional Balkan technique, executed in collaboration with artisans in Bosnia who continue to practice a UNESCO-protected method. The carving lines the edges of both table styles, extending the exhibition’s interest in material behavior into another register of craft. Kraš has long been drawn to line as a formal device: her 2008 Bonbon lamp, which launched her international profile at Salone del Mobile while she was still a student of interior architecture and furniture design at the University of Applied Arts in Belgrade, was built from repeated yarn threads rendered into volumetric form. That throughline continues across her wider practice, from delicate linear drawings and large-scale oil-stick works to the extruded lines of her Mara furniture pieces.

Kraš developed this body of work in the weeks following the birth of her child, drawing on the psychological state of that period—the sensation of enclosure, softness, and quiet transformation—as a conceptual starting point. “In those early days, I felt suspended in a quiet, protective space—very much like being inside a cocoon—and I wanted to work from that feeling of softness, closeness, and transformation,” she says. This led her back to silk’s origin: the cocoon, a structure simultaneously protective and temporary, built for emergence. Silk is inherently about transformation. It begins as a secretion, becomes a fiber, and is woven into cloth.

During that period, she spoke exclusively in Serbian to her newborn, which drew her toward incorporating her cultural heritage more directly into the work. The Bosnian collaboration is the result: a decision that roots the collection in a specific craft geography rather than allowing it to float in the generalized language of artisanal production. UNESCO recognition for traditional Balkan woodcarving techniques acknowledges a practice under real pressure from industrialization; embedding it in functional objects sold through a gallery gives it both visibility and continued use.

That cultural specificity is especially resonant within Kraš’s broader career, which has moved across cities, disciplines, and scales. Her practice spans furniture and interiors, photography, fine art, set design, fashion, textiles, ceramics, and creative direction, yet it remains recognizable through a spontaneous sensibility, simple forms, and an unexpected approach to color. With SVILA, those instincts are distilled into a collection that feels both deeply personal and materially precise. Silk becomes less an embellishment than a way of thinking about time, care, inheritance, and change.

To learn more about the designer and maker, visit emmascullygallery.com.

Photography by Joe Kramm.

New York’s design industry, defined by an ever-thriving community of independent talents and studios that arguably first emerged during the Great Recession of 2008, is unquestionably resourceful and inventive. Making do with limited resources and exorbitant rents, many autonomous practices come together to share space, mount group exhibitions during and outside of the annual NYCxDesign festival, and increasingly collaborate on fresh designs. Unlike in Europe, where it is slightly easier for independent talents to partner with established manufacturers, self-production and self-promotion are the name of the game here. There is, from time to time, help from centralizing galleries and retail concept spaces like Assembly Line.

Derived from the wildly successful interior practice General Assembly, this hybrid platform has become an essential resource, purveying various furnishing and finishing solutions to fellow trade professionals and individual customers alike. Over the past few years, it has also played host to several solo exhibitions debuting new collections by New York’s flock of fledgling designers.

With the launch of Kawabi and Christopher Merchant’s Amica lighting collection during this year’s New York Design Week, Assembly Line is positioning itself as a patron gallery: one that not only showcases new designs but also helps produce them, making critical connections between talents and manufacturers while linking talents with other talents.

As evident in this deftly imagined offering of pendant, table, and wall-mounted luminaires, the results of the latter arrangement are often greater than the sum of their parts. There is a pairing, matching, and ultimately fusing of expertise: distinctive design vocabularies that complement each other. In this case, it is Merchant’s captivating extruded ceramic process and Kawabi’s—Aaron and Irisa Na-Chan Kawabi’s—masterfully reinterpreted traditional joinery and papermaking techniques.

Both have primarily applied their self-developed, proprietary know-how to lighting design, but this collaboration brings this newly cohered savoir-faire to new heights. Merchant’s earth-tone vessels, identified by their idiosyncratic mold-pulled ridging, serve as the base for Kawabi’s tan-hued geometric and amorphous illuminated structures.

The paired studios iterated this counterbalance across an impressive range: wood-joined and paper-wrapped sconces anchored by textured, only slightly warped ceramic surfaces; a large, free-floating hanging pendant held in place by a small, equally finished ceramic weight. The possibilities of this collaboration seem endless.

In the past, both have operated Brooklyn studios within earshot of each other but did not realize it until recently. However, in response to the exorbitant rents mentioned before, Merchant recently moved to Minneapolis, where he is able to work in a larger, far less costly workspace.

Photography by Ben DeHaan.

In the current design landscape, collaboration has become a language unto itself, often compromising more considered ideas for quick commercial success. Fashion houses court architects, furniture brands invite artists into the studio, and retail giants translate the vocabularies of established designers into objects that can move far beyond the collectible gallery or rarefied residential interior. The results are mixed: some collaborations flatten a designer’s voice into surface treatment, while others open a more democratic path into a fully formed world.

Kelly Wearstler’s forthcoming collaboration with H&M HOME belongs to the latter category. Having debuted through a conceptual installation during Milan Design Week, the collection marks several firsts: H&M HOME’s first appearance at the fair, Wearstler’s own Milan Design Week debut, and the brand’s first designer collaboration to include large-scale furniture alongside smaller design objects.

That shift in scale matters. Rather than treating the collaboration as a limited assortment of decorative accents, Wearstler and H&M HOME have built something closer to a spatial proposition. The collection includes objects and furniture in wood, metal, ceramics, marble, and textiles, extending Wearstler’s command of material, proportion, and atmosphere into a format designed for a broader audience. Pieces such as the NOXEN Modular Stool, ETRINE Marble Tray, CURVA Vase, and SOLUNA Lounge Chair suggest a vocabulary of strong silhouettes, tactile contrast, and sculptural presence. Each has its own personality, yet none feels isolated from the larger interior narrative.

“From the outset, the thinking was always spatial,” Wearstler explains. “Even though the collection exists as individual pieces, they were conceived in relation to one another — how they can be personalized to live together, how they shape a room, how they support the way people move through a space.”

That distinction is crucial. In a mass retail context, design is often asked to become more legible, efficient, and broadly palatable. But accessibility does not have to mean reduction. Here, the collection demonstrates emotional and sensory intelligence, bringing the nuance of a highly authored interior into objects that can circulate through many kinds of homes.

Wearstler describes luxury today as something less tied to material value alone than to experience, intention, and atmosphere. “In a mass context, the challenge is to preserve that level of nuance,” she says. “It’s not about simplifying the work, it’s about distilling it and bringing clarity to the idea so that it can exist at scale without losing its integrity.”

That clarity comes through in the collection’s emphasis on daily ritual and modular synergy. Furniture, in Wearstler’s view, is not merely something to be admired but something to be lived with over time. It should support identity, movement, and mood. “When you think about furniture as a companion, it has to be adaptable, it has to have longevity, it has to earn its place in someone’s life over time,” she says. “It’s not about a moment; it’s about a relationship.”

The Milan presentation made that relationship visible. Installed at Palazzo Acerbi, a 17th-century Baroque palace on Corso di Porta Romana that has long been closed to the public, the preview placed the collection in deliberate tension with architectural grandeur. Soaring columns and frescoed interiors became more than a dramatic backdrop; they sharpened the contemporary language of the work. Produced by Studio Boum, the installation unfolded as an immersive, choreographed journey through the senses, with each room exploring a different facet of the collaboration.

For H&M HOME, the setting signals a more ambitious design position. “This collection represents many firsts for us,” says Evelina Kravaev-Söderberg, H&M HOME Head of Design & Creative. “Having a presence at Milan Design Week has long been a dream, and with Kelly, we knew the moment was right.”

For Wearstler, the palace revealed something a neutral retail environment could not. “It created a dialogue between past and present, ornament and restraint, permanence and flexibility,” she says. “That contrast brought the collection into sharper focus. It showed that the work isn’t dependent on a neutral backdrop. It can hold its own, it can create its own atmosphere, and it can exist within a broader architectural narrative.”

That may be the collaboration’s most compelling achievement. It understands that collectible design is not simply a matter of rarity, price, or limited availability, but of authorship, material intelligence, emotional charge, and the ability of an object to alter the room around it. By bringing those qualities into a more accessible framework, Kelly Wearstler and H&M HOME suggest a different kind of democratization: design made more widely available without surrendering its atmosphere.

The Kelly Wearstler H&M HOME collection will be available beginning September 3, 2026, in select stores and online.

Photography by Piergiorgio Sorgetti, courtesy of H&M HOME.