Auctioneer Stéphane Aubert rolls up on his Vespa at the entrance to an enormous storage space in the industrial no-man’s-land northwest of Paris. He’s sharply dressed in a shirt and tie, his navy pinstripe suit is crease-free and his black brogues are polished to a shine. He slips off his helmet and smiles.
Read More
The list was long and hand-written, spidery in black ink. It was structured by shop, the name of each underlined and followed by the shopkeeper’s name in brackets. It had a neat tear along one side and a doe-eyed donkey wearing a bulky saddle bag on the reverse. When my mother handed it over, saddle-side up, I said, ‘You ought to get me one of those.’
Read More
Cromwell Place is in good company. Spread across five white, stucco-fronted Victorian townhouses in London’s South Kensington, the new exhibition and co-working space shares a neighbourhood with world-renowned art, design and history institutions.
Read More
Smart collectors follow their taste and inclinations when they’re buying but they also have the nose to expand and explore new fields. We speak to four insiders about where the market is heading – and what sectors are piquing their interest.
Read More
Mark Rothko’s Seagram murals make you stop and think. Not necessarily about what they represent but how you feel. Their brooding veils of colour and blurry outlines draw you in. They’re like windows and doors, portals into another realm, with dusky planes and ragged edges.
Read More
As a major Paris exhibition shows Christian Louboutin’s body of work, we talk to the designer about the benefits of owning your own maison, shifts within the fashion industry and how he keeps his label fresh.
Read More
Winter is a time for hibernation, something the unnamed narrator of Ottessa Moshfegh’s third novel knows all too well. The critically acclaimed My Year of Rest and Relaxation tells the story of an art-history graduate in New York who decides to sleep for a year and emerge reborn.
Read More
“If I’d opened a gallery here in the beginning, no one would have come,” says Joana Grevers, sitting in the sun-dappled courtyard of her old family estate in Cetate, a small village on the Danube in southwest Romania.
Read More
Its image of straitlaced country folk has the ability to intrigue and unsettle. What’s the subtext of “American Gothic” and what does it tell us about the American people?
Read More
The acclaimed American author’s writing is whip-smart and bleakly funny. In conversation with Monocle’s Chloë Ashby she talks about her third novel My Year of Rest and Relaxation, New York in the early 2000s, and why she writes.
Read More
My brother and I knew it, simply, as “the shop”. The meeting point at which we’d gather after school. The place we’d visit for private fittings on Sundays, when the lights were dimmed and the doors were locked.
Read More
Four collectors share their thoughts on their latest art-fair acquisitions, revealing what it was that persuaded them to buy the pieces and where they see the market at the moment.
Read More
Planning a summertime sojourn in Athens? You’re bound to be warned about the heat. But don’t despair; it can be an inspiring time to visit (just don’t forget your swimsuit).
Read More
We’re having children later in life, which (hopefully) means our bank balances are more handsome. The outcome: a lot of money to spend on our kids.
Read More
Hotels make for attractive literary backdrops because they present the opportunity for chance encounters, overheard conversations, and intimate and awkward interactions.
Read More
The characters who polished shoes, poured wine and plumped pillows were a fascinating subject for one French artist, whose portraits are a window into 1920s Parisian society.
Read More
Seoul’s pay-by-the-hour motels may traditionally be aimed at hook-ups but they’re now exploiting a niche for short-term accommodation of a more salubrious variety.
Read More
Daimon Brewery has been running since the early 19th century and yet its current president isn’t afraid of trying new things.
Read More
From spidery graffiti to awe-inspiring murals, urban art has long played a role in the regeneration of this city. We brush up on the public art scene and its key players.
Read More
Venice’s trade relationship with Byzantium and Cairo brought silk, spices and a melange of exotic cultural influences you can see today – if you know where to look.
Read More