04.14.25

Fair Report

In Milan, Objects of Common Interest and Marsèll Team Up on an Exhibition That Uses Materials as Spatial Interventions

When the Italian boutique leather brand Marsèll opened its showroom a year and a half ago on Via Spiga, Milan's luxury shopping street, it was an exercise in restraint — similar to the shoes and bags on offer, the interior, by Berlin's Lotto Studio, took a minimal approach to form, with almost all the emphasis on the interplay of high-end natural materials like glass, stone, stainless steel, and walnut. That elegant spareness has made it not only the perfect visual expression of the brand, but also the perfect neutral backdrop against which to stage designer interventions during the Milan furniture fair. Last year Marsèll welcomed Gonzalez Haase AAS into the space, and this year, Objects of Common Interest — the New York– and Athens–based practice of Eleni Petaloti and Leonidas Trampoukis — did the honors, with a two-floor installation called Adaptive Ground that "explores the relationship between space and material."

01.16.25

Sighted

The Debut Collection From Studio Hanrahan Melds Ancient Forms and Contemporary Aesthetics

One of the best things about Sight Unseen turning 15 this year is having an archive at our fingertips by which to chart the growth of certain artists who have captured our interest over the years. Take Ryan Hanrahan, an Australian designer whose work we first published more than a decade ago. Hanrahan has been involved in several different ventures since then, including Addition Studios, a ritual-focused wellness brand he sold at the tail end of COVID. But looking at each one — particularly in the context of Text the Sun, the first collection he's releasing under his new studio name, Studio Hanrahan — you see the obvious through lines: the geometric shapes, the love for elemental materials such as marble and metal, the melding of ancient forms and contemporary aesthetics, an abiding interest in waterjet–cut perforations. Hanrahan calls Text the Sun "a playful recalibration" of those interests, and the results are lovely.

11.21.24

Gift Guides

Lace Pants and Stone-Encrusted Pillboxes: Jill’s 2024 Sight Unseen Gift Guide

Part II of our annual gift guide! A reminder: whether you’d actually buy these things is, to a certain extent, beside the point; it’s how enjoyable it can be to dig into a well-curated list and imagine a future when your home might be full of incredible things, and the world might just be a better place. Today’s gift guide comes from Jill, who tends to make personalized hats on Etsy for her loved ones but here is coveting a hefty glass catchall by an up-and-coming studio, the mixed-metal ring JB Blunk made for his wife, a semi-precious stone-adorned pillbox, a menorah that reminds us of a lazy Susan, and more. See — and shop — her full list below!

09.13.24

Fair Report

Everything We Loved at Collectible’s First Design Fair in New York City

Last Sunday afternoon, as the first NYC edition of the Brussels-based contemporary design fair Collectible was just about to wrap, one of the fair directors paused in front of our booth and asked me how I thought the show had gone. “There are designers here we’ve never heard of,” I marveled, intending it as high praise indeed: For a European fair to show up on New York’s doorstep and show us something new (especially a fair planned in less than four months), well, I’d call that a success. Collectible, which took place at the burgeoning FiDi creative hub WSA, managed to both assemble a cornucopia of new ideas and draw a crowd, all from across the Atlantic. We brought our own dose of novelty to the show, with a booth that — while similar to our NY Design Week exhibition — showcased a new batch of 11 cabinets by 11 different design studios, all punctuated by hardware from my recently launched showroom, Petra.

06.04.24

Sighted

Is Design In an Age of Maximalism, Or Minimalism? The Answer Is Both — and Pelle’s New Collection Offers Proof

Are we currently in an age of maximalism, with wood paneling, hand-painted ceilings, ruffled fabrics, and decorative pillows constituting the reigning aesthetic in design? Or an age of minimalism, when sleek chrome and the High-Tech vibe have never been more popular? The answer, really, is both — the two styles have often happily coexisted in the past, and we've been happily embracing both for awhile now. That might be why the latest collection from the Brooklyn studio Pelle, released a few weeks ago during New York design month, appeals to us: It unabashedly embraces both extremes.

05.24.24

Sight Unseen Collection

Our New York Design Week Launch: 10 Cabinets and Consoles by 10 Designers, All for Sale Through Sight Unseen

There's nothing better than a piece of furniture that simultaneously hides your possessions and, when open, offers them a beautiful backdrop. To celebrate our love of great storage options — and to offer our clients more of them — we presented 10 new pieces from our Sight Unseen Collection during New York Design Week (ahem, Month): casegoods by 10 different designers, some of which are already available to source on our site. Exhibited in the Chinatown showroom of Peter Staples's lighting studio Blue Green Works, the cabinets, consoles, and nightstands were the perfect way to also showcase decorative knobs and pulls from Monica's new project, Petra Hardware, in a collaborative exhibition.⁠

05.14.24

Shopping

Meet Petra: Your New One-Stop-Shop For Designer-Made Statement Hardware

If you're an interior designer whose client has non-traditional tastes. If you're a renter who's tired of looking at a tired kitchen but can't renovate. If you bought a beautiful storage cabinet years ago and want to fall back in love with it. If you own a house in Connecticut or L.A. but want its front door to look like a villa in Italy. If you just need one perfect little weirdo bauble for your nightstand. Basically if you want to make a small change, anywhere in a home, that makes a big visual impact: You're going to want to bookmark Petra. Petra is my new showroom for artistic hardware, and it launched last week with drawer pulls, cabinet knobs, door handles, furniture pulls, appliance handles, and more by 27 international designers.

06.30.23

Excerpt: Exhibition

A New Design Gallery in Berlin Gives a Long-Overdue Platform to Up-and-Coming German Studios

Despite being a longtime haven for artists and creatives — with its (formerly) cheap rents and surplus of accessible studio and exhibition spaces — Berlin never really made any sort of cohesive mark on the contemporary furniture-design world. That's why I got so excited recently when I heard about Forma, a new pop-up design gallery on the Spree river showing mostly contemporary work by mostly German or Germany-based designers like Nazara Lazaro, Carsten in der Elst, and Haus Otto — as well as why its founder, Vanessa Heepen, almost didn’t go through with it.

06.21.23

Sighted

This Campaign for a Sailboat-Inspired Sofa Transports You to a 100-Year-Old Sailing School in Venice

The Vela, designed for Saba Italia by Zanellato/Bortotto, is an interesting take on the puffy sofa: It's soft and cushy yet somehow still crisp, with arms that taper to a subtle point and striking diagonal tufting seams that gently reign in its voluminousness. That contrast is intentional, reflecting the inspiration for the sofa, which also lent it its name ("sail" in English): "We both love the sea and have always been fascinated by the unfurled sails blown by the wind near the Venice lagoon," says Daniele Bortotto. For its new campaign, Saba sent photographer Mattia Balsamini to photograph it at the Compagnia della Vela, a nautical school founded in 1911 on the island of San Giorgio.

06.17.23

Saturday Selects

Week of June 12, 2023

A weekly Saturday recap to share with you our favorite links, discoveries, exhibitions, and more from the past seven days. This week: acid-house Victorian-floral bedding by Jonathan Saunders, a fun new striped bench from Spain, and lots of summer travel porn in the form of two restaurants and two hotels in four different sun-soaked locales.

06.05.23

Excerpt: Exhibition

Sarah Burns’s Collection for Marta is Dreamy But Humble — In Other Words, a Little Midwestern

As a designer, New York–based Sarah Burns has a remarkable fluidity when it comes to scale. She can go small and intricate, like the jewelry she creates as co-owner of the Chinatown shop Old Jewelry. But she’s also adept at working with larger, place-defining forms, as with the furniture collection in her first solo show, Prairie’s Edge, now running at Marta in LA through June 10.

05.26.23

Fair Report

The Best of New York Design Week 2023, Part II

Part II of our New York Design Week roundup — the second and final in our coverage, though we technically had so much content we could have easily done three — is mostly an accounting of the more straightforward side of design week, from group exhibitions — like the launch of the Mexican and Latin American design–focused retailer Omet and the latest Radiator Show, which upends the idea of comfort at home — to sophisticated new collection presentations by brands like Atelier de Troupe and Orior. Plus, a handful of interesting collabs, and a birds-eye view of ICFF.