#blown-glass

#blown-glass

Paul Kutchinsky's ambition to create the world's largest jeweled egg was driven by a desire to showcase British craftsmanship on a global stage, competing with the legendary Faberge eggs.

Benedetta, as in the best stories of craftsmanship and innovation, leaves her garage. The domestic space, which sheltered and inspired her for years, is no longer enough. Demand is growing. Ideas are multiplying, and with them, collaborators.

Glass demands immediacy. Working at temperatures above 2,000°F leaves little room for overthinking, so the process becomes a kind of live dialogue between material, colour and chance. That same immediacy informs what I'm drawn to as a collector: works that carry a decisive gesture, a tactile presence, and the feeling that they could only exist in one form.

From unassuming hunks of Carrara marble and limestone, Matthew Simmonds carves realistic, miniature gothic cathedral arches, stairwells, and colonnades. Often based on architectural details of real places, such as cities around Tuscany and Germany's Bamberg Cathedral, the sculptures portray intimate details of corners, vaulted ceilings, arcades, and stairwells that can sometimes be peeked through additional apertures.

Glowtile works around a deceptively simple concept: glazed ceramic tiles, each fitted with an egg-shaped handblown glass diffuser set inside a ring of anodized aluminum. Two tile formats make up the system: a square 15×15 centimeter module and a rectangular 30×10 centimeter one. You can arrange them in grids, stagger them, mix both formats together, install them on walls, ceilings, or even set them on the floor to shoot light upward.

Working bead by bead, the artist recreates delicate blossoms that echo the organic irregularities of real flowers while shimmering with the luminosity of glass. From airy wildflower stems to full, colorful bouquets, each arrangement captures the fleeting beauty of botanical forms that remain permanently in bloom.

Glass, in particular, exists within a lineage of techniques that have changed surprisingly little over centuries. The furnaces may burn hotter and the tools may be refined, but the core dialogue between heat, gravity, and human hand remains remarkably intact.

For many of these sophomore efforts, however, the results felt tentative or overworked, with critics questioning direction and coherence. Bottega Veneta was the clear exception. Louise Trotter's collection stood out for its chic restraint and disciplined focus-understated rather than attention-seeking-grounding itself in craft, proportion, and material integrity instead of spectacle.

First, you probably have to rewire the lamp. Unless the seller already did it for you, it's best to rewire any vintage finds so you know they've been safely updated. The process isn't that hard, but you will need to buy the supplies and spend the time to do it correctly.

In Milan, Mara Bragagnolo designs the Officina Satinine perfume store as a reinterpretation of the city's historic entrance halls into a contemporary retail environment. Terracotta floors, cathedral glass, oak boiserie, and satin-steel details shape a tactile landscape that invites visitors to step inside and experience Milan through scent, light, and craft. Located in the heart of the Italian design capital, the project positions hospitality as its central architectural principle, balancing modern rigor with material richness and sensory depth.

Leading the collection is the Oscar Dog Bed, a contemporary take on rest that treats nap time with the same importance as your own. Crafted with a solid oak frame and wrapped in leather, the bed feels both architectural and intimate - a throne of your pet's own to claim. A plush cushion with a removable cover keeps naps comfortable while making weekly cleaning refreshingly easy. Offered in three sizes, it's designed to suit everyone from the curled-up napper to the full-body lounger.

In Lana Launay's Kinship series, light does more than illuminate space. It acts as a living archivist, revealing, preserving, and narrating stories embedded within inherited textiles. Through works such as Kinship I and Kinship II, the artist transforms antique doilies, lace fragments, and stockings passed down through generations into sculptural lighting forms that do not simply display history but actively project it into the present.

When it comes to your wardrobe, it can be easy to define "bougie" as a piece of clothing that looks or feels expensive - and while the items on this list check those boxes, they're also so clever, you'll wonder how you ever did without them. Scroll on to shop for chic loungewear with extra functional features; trendy and practical fits for both day and night; and accessories that solve all sorts of fashion-related dilemmas.

Tons upon tons of these single-use plastics end up in landfills or even floating in the ocean. Spanish design firm PET Lamp set out give another purpose to these otherwise short-lived materials. Partnering with artisans in communities from Chile to Ethiopia to Australia, the company celebrates both Indigeneity and sustainability, drawing upon time-honored global craft traditions while supporting local economies and recycling discarded materials.

These brands specialize in just that: pieces created by hand to your exacting designs and specifications, and never to be replicated. Maybe you're looking for top-of-the-range headphones to match your jet. Or could it be a suit for a pirate-esque get together? Or even an engraved signet ring, depicting a favored holiday destination in full color? For all of the above and more, here's who Elite Traveler recommends.

The concept's core is the classic Bialetti Moka Pot, iconic for its compact build of faceted aluminum. In this proposal, the upper chamber is recast in Hermès orange with a sculpted horse forming the lid's finial and body. The animal's legs extend down the sides of the upper chamber to transform the pot into a small stovetop design object. visualizations courtesy Jane Morelli

If you follow concept design on social media, there's a good chance you've already stumbled across Jane Morelli's work. She's the designer behind that Lacoste x Bialetti moka pot that went viral not too long ago, and now she's back with something that somehow manages to feel even more covetable. For the Year of the Horse, she has created a concept coffee set that imagines what a Hermès x Bialetti collaboration could look like, and the result is genuinely breathtaking.

Lighting is one of the most essential aspects of a home; it's also one of the most overlooked. The right illumination can create ambience, soften harsh edges, and imbue a sense of warmth. However, not all light sources are of the same quality. A custom chandelier, for instance, will always stand head-and-shoulders above the rest. These meticulously made creations can range from minimalist to monumental, bringing scale, ambition, and elegance into the room.

The design of the mini cauldron displays sculpted blades formed in the shape of a bigger torch. The opening on the sides allows for ventilation and a peek at the flames, and the CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati team says that the arrangement relies on the Venturi effect, drawing in more air to keep the combustion going. The team adds that the system can operate for up to negative 20 degrees Celsius and other extreme conditions.

For many the term is being quickly cliched; simply used as a marketing ploy: gimmicky solutions that are surface level at best but often permanent. What would happen if this formula was turned on its head and the early modernist notion of modularity - pre-produced kit-of-part components brought to and assembled on almost any site - was reintroduced as a way to better frame these settings, allowing their histories to unfold with almost no tampering.

Dining outside can be quite a beautiful thing - as the sun sets over a delicious meal, everything can feel just right - except, of course, when the night begins to fade. Enter Solae by Cecilie Manz, a portable, directional lamp that merges an ethos in nature with the quality and craftsmanship we've come to know and love from Fritz Hansen. Solae marks Manz's first rechargeable, portable lamp, offering new frameworks for how we might think about objects in the future.